About INSPIRE Film Festival

Victoria Park Productions have partnered with the British Film Institute to bring the INSPIRE FILM FESTIVAL to lower economic and deprived BAME groups within the city. The Season will be delivered in partnership with community schools and the Khidmat Community Centre which will host special live events that engage, bring together and celebrate film exhibition and film in post lockdown in some of the most deprived communities within the city. The season, is mindful of recent world events and will be a hybrid season that will host and screen hopeful films that champion BAME narratives with positive viewpoints with enhanced screenings.

A key aim of this season is to bring a sense of levity and hope to a BAME minority community that is both diverse and youth orientated groups that have felt the considerable effects of the Covid 19 pandemic. Early pandemic figures released by NHS England recorded more than 26% of people who tested positive for coronavirus when they died in hospitals in England were from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. That's despite BAME people making up 14% of the population in England and Wales. One report found that Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities accounted for 34.5% of critically ill Covid-19 patients in hospital. With a recent YouGov Polls highlighting the disproportionality high number of deaths within BAME communities within the UK in certain regions being up to 8 times more likely to die from the effects of Covid. Many reports have suggested these figures demonstrate a link to poverty, poor local services engagement and a sense of indifference to such communities from government institutions.

The season will target this hard to reach communities that mainstream film exhibitions have failed to reach through the normal channels. With the current climate of lockdowns, many minority communities have also felt massively isolated and unengaged. The season will hope to bring some light through these dark times with inspirational titles screened online and complemented by socially distanced screenings held at the season partner venues that will include themed dress themed screenings and group digital viewing and Q & As that engage. The aim of INSPIRE FILM FESTIVAL film season will be to connect with a community at the grass roots. The very hub of areas in recent times have been schools, often serving as adhoc community bases through foods banks, points of assistance, Covid vaccination centres and of course schooling. With the aim of continuing this tradition of engagement in mind this season will go beyond the everyday by screening a great selection of eclectic independent and international films to audience that need that sense of levity and crave exposure to independent film.

Hope through film is key here.

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