Training

Alongside all the celebration, Birds Eye View is committed to supporting, inspiring and up-skilling the next generation of women filmmakers. Working in partnership with some of the UK's leading film companies, academies and organisations, we focus in particular on creative and technical roles, where women are the most dramatically underrepresented. At the moment our training provision falls into two main categories:

Festival Training Workshops

Since 2007 we have been offering an extensive training programme alongside the Birds Eye View Film Festival, with workshops delivered in association with the likes of BAFTA, The Script Factory, Shooting People, National Film and Television School, 01Zero-One and The London Film Academy.

We also invite visiting international directors and screenwriters to deliver masterclasses (e.g. Jennifer Fox (Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman) in 2008; Laurie Collyer (Sherrybaby) in 2007; Martha Fiennes (Chromophobia) in 2006. For more on our 2010 festival training programme, supported by Skillset, click here.

BEV Labs

In 2008 we launched BEV Labs – intensive training programmes to hot-house exceptional female creatives, encouraging the transition from other media into film and resulting in new high quality commercial feature films, from a female perspective, for the international market.

The first BEV Lab, Last Laugh is a partnership with cutting edge low-budget production company Warp X, bringing together some leading lights of comedy writing from TV, theatre and standup to generate fresh, funny feature films – three of which are currently in development. This was supported by Skillset as part of A Bigger Picture. (For more info, click here).

The second BEV Lab, She Writes launches at the Birds Eye View Film Festival 2009, in partnership with leading training provider The Script Factory. Eight emerging women writers will be given mentoring and in-depth training as they develop feature scripts over one year, connecting with producers and commissioners along the way, resulting in public readings at the Bird Eye View Film Festival 2011. (For more info, click here).

We are really excited to be launching our third BEV Lab, Re: Animate in partnership with Warp Films, and with support from Skillset. Click here to find out more about it.

Youth Programmes

Birds Eye View is determined to see the younger generation enjoy equality behind and in front of the camera. We have delivered many successful workshops to groups of teenagers in schools and cinemas, showing short films made by women from around the world, discussing the importance of diversity in filmmaking and exploring film ideas which the young people would themselves bring to screen. We have worked in partnership with Film Education and FILMCLUB, and presented very well-received youth screenings at our festival, bringing school children into direct contact with filmmakers and potential role models through Q&As.

This is, however, a surprisingly underfunded area. At the moment we are seeking further support, before resuming our youth programmes.