HAFAD Awardees

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North West Vision has announced this year's HAFAD awardees. Below you will find information on some of the organisations and how they intend to use the funding.

Africa at the Pictures at Greenland Street
'I am delighted that North West Vision have decided to support the Africa at the Pictures programme at Greenland Street. This support will enable us to realise an exciting and ambitious project which we hope will have a big impact on Liverpool's audiences'. Keith Shiri, Director, Africa at the Pictures.

'Fantastic news!' James Moores, Chief Executive, aFoundation

AFoundation, the founder of the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary is establishing a new visual arts organisation based in three former industrial buildings on Greenland Street. Building on the previous achievements of the Foundation, the new arts organisation (called Greenland Street) will have a mission to develop and deliver curated programmes of activity that bring the very best regional, national and international exhibitions and cultural practice to Liverpool.

Greenland Street will be launched during the 06 Biennial with an ambitious arts programme that aims to reflect the diversity of Liverpool's communities and engage with widest possible audience. Within this programme, aFoundation is committed to showcasing international practice of the highest quality, and to this end has invited Africa at the Pictures and its Director Keith Shiri to develop a three week film programme which draws on his considerable knowledge and experience of emerging film makers from the continent.

Africa at the Pictures exists to further enhance the exhibition and distribution of African Film in the UK and Europe. Africa at the Pictures also provides a platform for debate and discussion relating to African Cinema. Recent projects, as part of the Africa 05 season in London have seen Africa at the Pictures working with the BFI to bring Ousmane Sembene to the NFT to premiere his new film Moolade, and a digital workshop for young people co-hosted with Channel 4, featuring Yizo Yizo and DV8 from South Africa.

Shoreline Films (Cumbria)

Shoreline Films are delighted that they have just received two awards from North West Vision.

This essential funding will allow Shoreline Films to continue delivering high quality film provision to people throughout Cumbria; without this the access to film and film making in Cumbria would be severely lacking.

The exciting new programmes that Shoreline Films will be able deliver include;

  • Developing Cumbrian Film Talent: An in-depth film training programme providing workshops, scriptwriting support, film surgeries and open access digital film making facilities for the whole of Cumbria.
  • Festival Cuts - Developing Cumbrian Audiences: A year long festival of film for Cumbria - featuring monthly screenings of critically acclaimed feature films and short films made by local and regional filmmakers. Screening events will take place in urban and remote rural areas of Cumbria stimulating an increase in new film audiences.

First Take's 'Distinct Voices

Diverse Lives' will take place in three regions throughout the North West. In each region 10 writers and 10 film-makers will be trained and 5 short films will be produced, screened and entered into festivals. The emphasis of the training will be on writing and directing the short film. Distinct Voices : Diverse Lives is aimed at people who are under-represtented in the film industry.

Paul Olaneye was on last years course and went on to a training scheme with First Take through Media Training North West and is due to start work full time in April. For Paul Distinct Voices : Diverse Lives was 'an enlightening course which furthered my knowledge and understanding of making a short film. It was fab.'

Lynne Harwood, who devised the writing part of the course and is presently producing this years five films in the Wyre, Fylde and Blackpool area, believes that Distinct Voices : Diverse Lives is brilliant in the way it brings writers and film-makers together after they have been trained:

"It's great when, after each of the writers have written their 3 minute film, they have to pitch their ideas to the Director/AD teams and 5 of the scripts get taken forward into production. All the writers dread pitching but after it's over they always feel that it was a fantastic experiience."

The writers whose scripts don't get chosen can go on to be either a script editor or assistant producer on one of the films. The 10 film-makers get to be either a Director or 1st AD and also crew on each others film.

This year First Take will be running Distinct Voices : Diverse Lives in Merseyside, Lancashire and Greater Manchester.

Kendal Mountain Film Festival

"This grant from North West Vision will ensure that we can build upon our successes over the past few years and maintain our position as the world's leading mountain film festival" Julie Tait, Development Director

The grant from North West Vision enables Kendal Mountain Film Festival to maximise its impact in 2006 through developing its core team, expanding its marketing and PR work and through launching its UK tour to increase its audience. It will also build on the huge success of its Extreme Film School, the only adventure film-making school of its kind in Europe.

NWDAF

North West Disability Arts forum is designing a three week, NVQ level film-making course in partnership with Liverpool Community College and First Take Video at Toxteth TV. 'Shoot to Thrill' will engage the skills of Anne Cunningham who's leading on the project. We aim to train 12 disabled or Deaf people developing 2, ten minute films devised by the participants. We will show case the work at this years DaDaFest and promote it into other film festival across the UK. The project will take pace in August 2006.