With over £3 million in funding generated for Welsh cinemas, festivals and community screens since 2013, Film Hub Wales (FHW) is taking a look back at the last 10 years.
Working with a vast network of over 300 exhibitors in Wales, offering dedicated advice, training and funding, the Hub has brought nearly 6000 of the best UK independent and international films to communities Wales-wide since the project’s launch. All made possible thanks to BFI National Lottery funding.
Highlights
Highlights range from the large-scale Roald Dahl on Film centenary and a celebration of UK animation: Anim18, both of which reached 150 cinema screens UK-wide, through to the Wales Youth Festival Network and Off Y Grid, which established regional collaborations between clusters of cinemas and festivals for the benefit of hyper-local audiences. The Hub has also set up instrumental schemes like Made in Wales, which addresses a gap in the Welsh film chain by working to promote films with Welsh connections and Inclusive Cinema, which was designed to support fair representation and access within UK cinema environments.
Looking back to the Hub’s launch, Welsh cinemas went dark as part of a UK-wide season called BFI Gothic in 2013. In Aberystwyth, audiences got aboard the Abertoir Horror Express, the first of many off-site events the renowned international festival would go on to host.
This was just the beginning. The Hub has since funded and/or directly developed 347 projects across Wales, from Picturing our Past – an enhanced e-book on the history of Wales from the Screen and Sound Archive at the National Library of Wales, to the support of six venues in their efforts to embed d/Deaf led cinema schemes with the Wales Council for Deaf People.
The Hub’s activities also extend to skills development. With the aim of supporting a confident and thriving exhibition sector, the Hub has awarded 193 training bursaries for members to attend important courses or meetings outside of their local authorities. They have also created 26 courses and 23 online resources in house and offered hundreds of opportunities for exhibitors to network and access one-to-one advice from the Hub team.
Find out more
Partners can learn more about the Hub’s work in their 10-Year Highlights, which covers a selection of projects, which they will be sharing on their socials in the coming weeks. You can also hear from Hub members themselves who explain what the project has meant to them in a series of short videos. The Hub has also funded 17 new projects in 2023 which means there are many exciting things still to come for Welsh audiences.
Film Hub Wales is part of the BFI Film Audience Network (FAN) using funds from the National Lottery to ensure the greatest choice of cinema is available to everyone across the UK. Funds in Wales are administered by FHW via Chapter as the Film Hub Lead Organisation.
