Bringing Nottingham Together Through Film: Inside Nottingham Film Festival

What inspired you to establish Nottingham Film Festival, and what gap did you want it to fill in the city's film scene?

There have been different versions of the Nottingham Film Festival for the last 10 years or so. For the last 3 years, Joseph Archer, our festival director, has created an environmentally conscious and inclusive space for film to be experienced in Nottingham. I joined the team this year along with Naps and Jen, two filmmakers also from Nottingham, and we set out to create an event that allows visitors to explore the city of Nottingham through film. Whilst keeping the festival's original intentions at the heart of this expansion, it inspired us to incorporate the iconic cinemas and spaces that first introduced us to the magic of Notts film. From one venue, over the last few years we’ve been working hard to grow this year's festival to five venues. Though the film festival has expanded this year, we still recognise the importance of environmentally minded film exhibition and a welcoming, friendly space to experience cinema.

How has the festival evolved since its first edition, and what are your ambitions for its future?

I remember visiting the early editions of the film festival, and the intimate environment of ‘The Mammoth’ cinema was a beautiful venue to bring Nottingham locals together and experience world/local cinema. However, over the last three years, the growth has been remarkable to the point that this year we’ve added 4 new venues, and this year we had the most submissions we have ever had to the film festival. It clearly demonstrates that filmmakers would love their films to be exhibited in Nottingham. We owe it to these filmmakers and the visitors to the festival to exhibit these films wherever we can put on a show worthy of these great projects.

This year's programme includes short films, documentaries, animation, experimental work and feature films. How do you approach curating such a diverse range of work?

I have been a film festival programmer for over 5 years now; this is my first year working on Nottingham FF’s programme, and a welcome challenge has been working with Feature Films and Short Film offerings. I approached this programme with the mentality that each session should be complementary and serve a purpose. For example, our queer-focused session ebbs and flows in tone, drawing in the audience with an eye-catching opener before later in the session we drive home the collective messages of inclusivity, joy, and kindness with a heartwarming documentary. Though initially these films may not seem like they work together, if you find the right order, they can culminate in a memorable experience. This doesn’t always happen, and you might have a group of films that are just so unique that they don’t quite gel. This then becomes the theme, and the unique unpredictability of the films becomes the purpose of the session. An example of brilliance in the unexpected is our ‘This Could Get Weird’ session featuring music videos, horror, and experimental cinema.

How important is it for you to showcase Nottingham-based filmmakers and give local talent the opportunity to reach new audiences?

There’s no film festival without Nottinghamshire filmmakers; it's as straightforward as that. The core Nottingham Film Festival team is mostly made up of filmmakers, and we fully understand the vital effect film festivals can play in the lifecycle of our film projects. When joining the team and setting out our plan for this year's festival, it was always outlined very clearly what our offering for local filmmakers would be, and that our goal is to inspire and actively contribute to the development of film in the East Midlands. We have a whole evening dedicated to celebrating Midlands filmmakers, with a large selection of Nottingham-based films being screened. Join us on Saturday the 28th of November at Vue Nottingham to witness what Nottingham’s film scene has to offer.

The festival includes awards recognising films that raise awareness of mental health and environmental issues. Why were these themes important to the festival's founding vision?

When joining the team, the festival director, Joseph, made it clear that the festival’s goal is to incubate meaningful conversations around Mental Wellbeing and Environmental struggles affecting the world today. These conversations are unavoidable and affect all of our lives; the Nottingham Film Festival promotes and celebrates films that are approaching these subjects with originality and flair. Our screenings dedicated to these vital themes act as a space to actively address and discuss these major challenges. During ‘There’s Always Time’ on Tuesday 24th of November, we will be collecting donations for a mental health charity. Also, when planning the festival, we refused to choose venues you can’t reach with public transport as one way to keep the carbon footprint of the festival down, trying where we can to practice what we preach.

Independent filmmakers often struggle to get their work seen beyond online platforms. What role do film festivals play in helping them connect with audiences and industry professionals?

As a film professional myself, I can safely say I wouldn’t have worked on half the projects I have without film festivals. To have your film screened and then be able to meet and rub shoulders with fellow professionals is a rewarding and fruitful process. It’s a profound moment of reflection to experience a film you created in front of a live crowd. That’s part of the reason our operational team is working as hard as possible to exhibit each film in the best environment possible. When these filmmakers have moved on from shorts and have made their first feature, hopefully they’ll still remember Nottingham Film Festival and the great night they had screening their film.

The festival also features networking opportunities. How are you exploring different ways for audiences to experience film beyond traditional screenings?

To innovate and engage audiences beyond a traditional screening is a great challenge and one I relish; this year we are experimenting with some really unique experiences. As well as networking on the opening night, closing night, and the Saturday night of the festival, we are going to try something that I don’t believe has ever been done, definitely not in the East Midlands. On Friday the 27th of November, we are bringing together short films and stand-up comedy. As a programmer, it's been great fun pairing comedy short films with great East Midlands stand-up comedians. I’m very excited to see how this night goes; it could be the last time, or it could be the first of many hilarious comedy shorts/standup screenings.

Nottingham has a strong creative identity, from its independent music scene to its film and arts communities. How does the festival fit into that wider cultural landscape?

This is such a good question, and watch this space as we are trying to ingrain the arts communities deeper into the foundations of Nottingham Film Festival. Spreading ourselves across the city was an active attempt to follow the city’s creative identity. Art in Nottingham is for the people of Nottingham; we wanted to ensure that was the same with our festival. Choosing a variety of venues and holding most tickets to £5 each or PWYW are a few things we are doing to ensure Nottingham Film Festival is actively contributing to the cultural landscape and DNA of this city.

What challenges have you faced in establishing an independent film festival, and what have you learned about building an event that can sustain itself in the long term?

There’s a selection of challenges all film festivals have to overcome, for example, keeping momentum and awareness all year round. This year we have expanded, so keeping that buzz going after the last film has screened will be a welcome challenge. Now, one of the problems we have that other festivals don’t is our promise to the environment and staying conscious of our footprint. Building awareness of what we have planned this year is a tough task when staying environmentally aware. Public awareness is essential both in attracting visitors to the festival and catching filmmakers' attention so they submit their film in the first place. We use social media sparingly and keep physical deliverables, programmes, leaflets, etc. to an absolute minimum, as well as a variety of other methods to protect the planet where we can.

What would you say to someone who has never attended a film festival before, and what do you hope audiences take away from the experience?

I’d say come give us a try; this film festival has been built from the ground up by regular Nottinghamshire folk who are doing things a little differently to ensure a celebration of film in Nottingham that’s open to all. If you’ve never seen a short film before or if you’ve been to every film festival in the country, Nottingham Film Festival will create a memorable experience. There’s something for everyone at the film festival and a chance to be inspired or simply watch something out of the mainstream; leave Netflix at home as NFF brings you Midlands, UK, and even a few European premieres. We even have an awards show to crown the first-ever ‘Robin Hood Film Award’ recipient on the last day of the festival. Who knows, popping in for one of our screenings could become a yearly tradition as we add a new chapter to Nottingham’s rich tapestry of cinema. If you are reading this and you're not a Nottingham native, then what are you waiting for? We are throwing the doors open and inviting you to explore this fine city through film.