Birds Eye View : About Us : Film Festival

Film Festival

The Birds Eye View Film Festival is the UK's only public celebration of international women filmmakers. It takes place for ten days around International Women's Week every March, at the BFI Southbank, ICA, City Screen cinemas, BAFTA, Southbank Centre, Prince Charles cinema and other venues.

2012 is a transition year, in which there will not be a full film festival due to the radical changes within the funding of British film. The festival will return to full form in 2013.

Festival Programme

The Festival comprises around 70 events, including a showcase of 10 international feature film previews, 6 documentaries, 30 short films, 7 silent films and a wider retrospective of 14 titles celebrating women in a particular genre (usually Classic Hollywood, programmed in partnership with the BFI).

This main film programme is enlivened with innovative and exciting special events, including Sound & Silents: a series of specially commissioned new musical scores from cutting edge female musicians, performed live in accompaniment to the silent film programme; Fashion Loves Film: a screening of the latest in this new genre with discussion from artists and fashion industry professionals; Music Loves Video; an Innovation strand with online showcasing of new digital work plus seminars on cross-platform film projects, mobile phone filmmaking, mediascapes and other new developments in film, and a Festival Party which traditionally features live performance from upcoming female artists (past highlights including Florence and the Machine in 2008 and Anna Calvi in 2010).

The festival opens on International Women’s Day with a Gala showcase of the best emerging women filmmakers from around the world, introduced by a celebrity host (past speakers have included Zoe Wanamaker, Sally Hawkins, Jane Horrocks, Juliet Stevenson), preceded by a VIP reception and followed by an audience party with female DJ. The Closing Night Gala is a premiere screening of a feature film, preceded by an awards ceremony at BFI Southbank NFT1.

Awards are presented for Best Feature, Best Doc, Best Newcomer, Best International Short Film and Best UK Short Film. A jury of three industry professionals / press / leading arts figures are appointed for each category. Previous jurors have included Fiona Shaw, Deborah Warner, Katie Mitchell, Wendy Mitchell, Sarfraz Manzoor, Jane Giles, Esther Freud, Andrea Riseborough, Mark Adams, Dave Calhoun and more.

Festival Audience

Our audience has grown from 2,100 in 2005 to 11,000 in 2011, with at least 70% of attendees new to BEV each year. 90% of this audience rate BEV events at least 4 out of 5 for excellence. Our touring programmes take Festival highlights (Sound & Silents commissions) to a further 6-7,000 across the UK, at music festivals including Latitude, and arts centres (e.g. Arnofini, Bristol) and rep cinemas (Tyneside, Newcastle; Duke of Yorks, Brighton).

BEV's broadcast reach (content, not just PR) leapt to 450,000 via media partners (inc The Horror Channel) in 2011, and online audience reach via web-based work, online interactive Q&As and livestreaming of events to 150,000.

BEV develops audiences through our distinctive and widely appealing brand, our provision of content appealing to thousands of women not well served by the mainstream gender imbalance in film, our targeted and diverse marketing strategies and our innovative cross-arts strand which actively engages audiences not usually devoted to specialist cinema.

For full programme of past Birds Eye View Film Festivals please follow the links below:

Birds Eye View Film Festival 2011

Birds Eye View Film Festival 2010

Birds Eye View Film Festival 2009

Birds Eye View Film Festival 2008

Birds Eye View Film Festival 2007

Video highlights from Birds Eye View Film Festival 2010