Suffolk Shorts at BFI Southbank
Over the last year we’ve been really impressed with the ways the FHSE team has broadened their offer to support members, outside of simply funding audience development. Looking at information sharing in the regular online meetings, and bringing film exhibitors together in a warm and open environment benefits us all. Rachel and I were asked to present a session at the Film Hub South East Forum 2025 this year.
Neither of us are particularly good at traditional ‘networking’, and have both spent our professional lives behind the camera or backstage, so the first response to being asked to do anything like this is usually ‘I’d rather have my eyes poked out with hot needles” (Rachel). This was different though. Lily and David from FHSE are so encouraging and just let us take to the stage to have a chat about our journey rather than doing anything more formal. By the time it was our turn we’d realised we were surrounded by people all wanting to get as many other people to see as many films as possible. It was actually rather cool to be presenting to like minded people in NFT3 at BFI Southbank!
FHSE asked us to focus on ‘The opportunities/challenges of getting a public audience for short films made by local talent’. This was easy. We have two main aims for our audience; to bring independent International and British short films to people that may not have seen them before, and to show them films from our region. The East Anglian Award category is our showcase and the Official Selection is chosen from shorts that feature stories or cast from the region, or those which are made by people based in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex.
We explained how we eventually reached this unique profile for our festival, and how well our audience began to respond to the Q&A sessions with local filmmakers. Josh Dickinson always pulls together the best programme, and his questions last year were so insightful as his background is in both writing/directing and acting.
It wasn’t a smooth path, but once we had begun to really listen to what our audience thought about the event we knew we could achieve both aims.
“As a resident of Suffolk I was curious enough to go and watch films made here and also shown here. This drew me into the rest of the festival which I thought was a brilliant local event and most certainly will go again.”
Our time fizzed by as Rachel and I reminisced, and she managed to keep me on track - which isn’t always easy. We felt privileged to have the platform and learned so much from our fellow festival founders, cinema managers, community film club organisers and the Short Cuts filmmakers (more on them later).