Members’ Meeting: Announcing our special guest Simon Chinn

If you’ve not already registered for our Members’ Meeting on 13 Dec at 3pm, please join us, meet your fellow members and hear about what the board and leadership team have been working on. We’re also thrilled to announce that we’ll be joined by guest speaker and DFC member – the double Academy Award winning producer, Simon Chinn (The Mission, Man on Wire, Searching for Sugarman, Project Nim) – who will share his perspectives on the pressures facing our industry and how we can address them. There will also be updates from the leadership team as we look forward to 2025, and an opportunity to discuss all things documentary with your fellow DFC members and Trustees.

Please register for the event below – and let us know if you have any access requirements by emailing [email protected].

Launching the Bristol Doc Club

We are very excited to share our new initiative in collaboration with some of our Bristol members and existing networks in the region, the Bristol Unscripted Network (BUNs) and Doc West. We’ve partnered with Bristol’s Watershed cinema and will be hosting regular screenings and networking events to help build documentary culture and community in the South West. The Doc Club kicks off on 10 Dec at 6pm with a screening of Frank Capra: Mr America followed by a Q&A with Director and DFC Member, Matthew Wells (plus an opportunity to grab a drink and network in the bar afterwards). 

If you’re keen to come along or find out more about future events in Bristol, you can follow @bristoldocclub on Instagram here.

We hope this collaboration will be the first of many to follow around different regions of the UK, so please get in touch with [email protected] if you would like to do something similar in your home town or city.

Call for volunteers!

We are looking for volunteers to help support the leadership team from January 2025 onwards. Are you a whizz on social media? Maybe you love community organising or grant writing, or have a particular passion about an issue facing our sector? Whatever your skills or capacity, we want to hear from you. 

Contact [email protected] for more information.

DFC Member Spotlight: Havana Marking

For our inaugural DFC Member Spotlight we are featuring award-winning director and DFC Member, Havana Marking. Havana is known for working on films that bring depth and insight to the stories behind the headlines. Her most recent feature, Undercover: Exposing the Far Right is out now on Channel 4 and is touring film festivals globally.

We spoke to Havana about the making of her latest work and London Film Festival’s recent decision to pull the film from their programme at the eleventh hour due to safety concerns. The outcome has sparked major discussions around the wider implications of self-censorship and the responsibilities of our cultural institutions in the UK and beyond. Read the full interview below for more.

End of year survey: member feedback and testimonials

As a co-operative, the DFC is owned by its members and we’d love to have feedback from you on what we’re doing well, what we could be doing better and what we need to focus on in 2025. We’re also really keen to collect testimonials from our members that we can use to support (and hopefully help fund!) our work.

So, irrespective of which tier of membership you have, please take a moment to give us some feedback and a few words on why you think we need an organisation like the DFC in our sector. Maybe it’s having a national membership organisation that’s important to you? Maybe it’s our democratic governance structure or the co-operative values and principles? Or perhaps it’s having an umbrella body with a remit to represent documentary to industry and government. Whatever you value about the DFC, please let us know. It shouldn’t take more than 10-15 minutes. Thank you!

London screening invite: The World According to Allee Willis

All members of the Documentary Film Council (plus a guest) are kindly invited to a special FREE screening of The World According to Allee Willisplus filmmaker Q&Anext Monday, December 9 at 7pm at the Courthouse Hotel Shoreditch, London. Tickets are being offered on a first-come, first-serve basis, so please RSVP with your full name and email address to [email protected] to secure your place.

ScreenSkills survey: Mapping the film industries

ScreenSkills recently launched ‘Powering Skills, our five-year strategy‘ to build a strong, inclusive, and adaptable workforce for the screen industries. A key part of the strategy is gathering data on the skills needed now and in the future so that training and resources can be directed where they’re needed most.
 
They are conducting a study into the size and structure of the screen industry workforce across the UK, including roles, departments, and more. Your input will help them better understand the documentary sector and ensure they’re delivering the right training, for us all, across the UK. Please complete the survey via the link below.

Fill in the survey

Blue Has No Borders crowdfunder

There are only a few days left to help DFC Member (and Trustee), Jessi Gutch and team to reach their crowdfunding goal! Blue Has No Borders is a feature documentary about how an English seaside community at the frontline of Britain’s identity crisis shows we have more in common than what splits us apart. Without your help this film will struggle get made, so please dig deep and support them before it’s to late.

Together Films are hiring a Film Sales Executive

Our friends at Together Films are looking for a Film Sales Executive to join their growing sales team. It’s a full-time, flexible/UK based or remote US (EST) role and the closing date for applications is 13 December! To find out more follow the link below.