Film Hub North West Central has been successful in its application for a grant to the BFI Programming Development Fund to take part in the BFI Sci-Fi ‘Days of Fear and Wonder’ season (October – December 2014).
Having been awarded the full £51,100, activity will take place across the region in partnership with a range of Hub Members including Cornerhouse, MOSI, Grimm Fest, Anthony Burgess Foundation and Manchester Science Festival (all Manchester), Quad (Derby), They Eat Culture (Preston) and the Dukes (Lancaster).
The BFI Programming Development Fund supports programming initiatives of cultural significance, high profile and wide reach, encouraging curatorial ambition, achieving economies of scale and bringing films to audiences across the UK in a fresh and original way. Film Hub North West Central is part of a UK-wide network of Hubs with the aim of bringing specialised and independent British Film to UK audiences in new and exciting ways. The North West Central region covers Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire.
Film Hub North West Central aims to fully embrace the BFI Sci-Fi season across a wide range of areas, enabling audiences across the region to experience, access, learn from and enjoy specialised film. Key areas of focus are international titles and guests, LGBTQ cinema and the links between science fiction literature, film and the world of science.
Cornerhouse will present a selection of high profile events aimed at celebrating the science fiction genre. The project will include a Sci-Fi all-nighter, a theatrical cinema event stretching across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland plus special international guests and a series of literature events with the Anthony Burgess Institute. Events will be contextualised with guest speakers from literary, cinematic and scientific spheres to ensure a diverse choice of content for audiences.
Grimm Fest are developing a new partnership with the Trof group, who own and run an ever-growing number of entertainment venues around Manchester. A shared love of genre and cult film & TV enables them to jointly host special screening events around the city. The project, taking place at Gorilla, will present a day of screenings, guest speakers and Q&As related to a British Sci-Fi series.
QUAD will showcase a season of classic and rarely seen Sci-Fi films curated by QUAD and Adam Batty, Editor of the Hope Lies At 24 Frames A Seconds website with the aim to blend classics with more obscure titles.
They Eat Culture take the location and culture of Preston together with Sci-Fi renderings of small-town/big-city, insider/outsider as a starting point for their contribution, with the programme revealing itself across hidden spaces and non-traditional screening sites to examine emotions and questions of place. They Eat Culture curate international films, audio-visual experiences, commentary and participatory performance around these themes for the audience to engage with as part of the events.
Manchester Science Festival and Grimm Fest host a series of double-bill screenings at the Museum of Science and Industry. Using the expertise of all three partners this project will provide audiences with access to diverse content and added depth through presentations and talks as part of the overall Science Festival programme, which runs from Thu 23 October to Sun 2 November.
The Dukes will screen a season of science fiction films as part of a larger city-wide series of events exploring the genre. They will be organised in collaboration with the English and Creative Writing and Film Studies departments at venues across the city. Lancaster University’s Dr Brian Baker has consulted on the programming of the selected titles.
