When there’s no clear path into the film indus­try, cre­ate your own

How do you break into an indus­try when you’re not a part of the demo­graph­ic that is primed for suc­cess? How do you get work expe­ri­ence in a field that only has about 20 oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able com­pared to the hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple who want them? How do you build a net­work of influ­en­tial con­tacts when all the impor­tant events hap­pen in major cities like Lon­don or New York, and you live in the mid­dle of nowhere? How do you get any­one to hear your voice when every­one else is shout­ing loud­er than you?

These are the ques­tions that hang over every young pro­fes­sion­al striv­ing for an illus­tri­ous career in the film indus­try. I was dis­il­lu­sioned by the time I fin­ished my MA in Film Stud­ies – I want­ed to be a crit­ic and cura­tor, focus­ing on edu­cat­ing the aver­age view­er on how the visu­al media that dom­i­nates our way of liv­ing impacts our soci­ety. But just like many oth­er ambi­tious new­com­ers, I had to face the rain cloud of real­i­ty: there are vir­tu­al­ly no jobs in this voca­tion, and the bar­ri­ers to entry are seem­ing­ly end­less. Loca­tion, con­tacts, tim­ing, and pure luck – these are the things that can deter­mine your fate in this indus­try beyond just hard work and determination.

Just as I was los­ing hope, the project that I had been wait­ing for final­ly appeared. In late 2019, a Young Film Pro­gram­mers scheme was being brought to Nor­wich where I lived at the time. A term you might have seen pro­mot­ed at your local inde­pen­dent cin­e­ma, the Young Film Pro­gram­mers is an ini­tia­tive that takes place all around the coun­try, aim­ing to pro­vide 16 – 30-year-olds with career expe­ri­ence in film pro­gram­ming by hav­ing them plan, mar­ket, and host unique film screenings.

Our small group of four cin­e­ma-mind­ed youths were tasked with plan­ning three screen­ings in Nor­wich with the goal of get­ting our peers out of the mul­ti­plex­es and into the bou­tique the­atres. We got to work and planned our first screen­ing – Fran­co Rosso’s Baby­lon (1980) – and set a date: 7 April 2020.

We all know what hap­pened next.

With the pan­dem­ic, cin­e­mas shut down, bud­gets were slashed, and out­reach pro­grammes were erad­i­cat­ed. At the same time, I had to return to the US because my stu­dent visa was about to expire. Back in Nor­wich, every­one had giv­en up on this lit­tle film group, but I wasn’t quite ready to let it die.

I was deter­mined to make a space for myself in this indus­try, so I took the basis of what had been start­ed and turned it into some­thing that allowed me to do all the things I want­ed to do with my career – crit­i­cism, cura­tion, pro­gram­ming. And since the pan­dem­ic forced every­thing into the dig­i­tal sphere, why not this? Five years on, what start­ed in Nor­wich has now expand­ed around the globe, pro­vid­ing prospects for oth­er pas­sion­ate peo­ple to gain their own experience.

Today, Film East is a mul­ti-award-win­ning film organ­i­sa­tion based in the East of Eng­land and the East Coast of the Unit­ed States. It’s run by an inter­na­tion­al col­lec­tive of under 30s, who vol­un­teer their time and exper­tise to edu­cate and inspire the next gen­er­a­tion of film enthu­si­asts by offer­ing unique oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­nect through thought-pro­vok­ing cin­e­ma. Our var­i­ous activ­i­ties are designed to enhance our audience’s learn­ing and under­stand­ing of the world around them, all while encour­ag­ing them to engage with film, art and their community.

Although Film East phys­i­cal­ly exists on the East­ern shores of Eng­land and the US, we are a glob­al organ­i­sa­tion. Jump­ing between the two con­ti­nents, we con­tin­ue to host in-per­son screen­ings, work­shops, and events in Nor­folk and Suf­folk to keep up with the group’s ini­tial vision. One of my favourite ven­tures was dur­ing Pride in 2023, when we took our LGBTQIA+ curat­ed col­lec­tion, ​“PROUD”, on a small tour, high­light­ing films like Cheryl Dunye’s The Water­mel­on Woman (1997), Céline Sciamma’s Tomboy (2011) and Zai­da Bergroth’s Tove (2020).

See­ing how the US lacked any organ­i­sa­tion like Film East, I began imple­ment­ing our mis­sion into my native mar­ket. Our first offi­cial US screen­ing, which is tak­ing place this com­ing Sep­tem­ber, comes from our newest curat­ed col­lec­tion, ​“This is Britain.” We’re show­cas­ing Ella Glendining’s Nor­folk-based doc­u­men­tary, Is There Any­body Out There? to spot­light how art can be used to advo­cate for dis­abil­i­ty aware­ness. We’ve led work­shops, lec­tures, Q&As and every­thing in between; we’ve even been able to pro­vide bud­ding young crit­ics with the chance to work as press at major film fes­ti­vals like TIFF and LFF.

While we love putting on these phys­i­cal events, we also want to accom­mo­date film fans who aren’t in these places. At the end of the day, we are chil­dren of the inter­net, and we know how to har­ness the dig­i­tal tools that will con­nect us with film lovers all around the world. Through a shared pas­sion for cin­e­ma, we have worked with cre­atives aged 15 to 80 based in the UK, North and South Amer­i­ca, Cen­tral Europe, India, Asia and more.

Our main objec­tive as an organ­i­sa­tion is to pro­vide prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence to those who want to improve their CV, build their belief in them­selves or sim­ply try out a new hob­by. A val­ued mem­ber of our team, William Schofield joined Film East in 2020, look­ing for a way to com­bine his inter­ests in cin­e­ma and his­to­ry. Will used his involve­ment in Film East to secure his per­fect job as a film archivist: ​“From hav­ing my words and ideas pub­lished in phys­i­cal books to tak­ing part in a fea­ture seg­ment on BBC Radio, I am stag­gered by how many incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ties I’ve been able to take part in with Film East. Soon after join­ing the group as a full-time mem­ber, I man­aged to find a posi­tion at a film archive; the cura­to­r­i­al skills I devel­oped with Film East were a mas­sive boon both in being hired and in my day-to-day work.”

Our writ­ing plat­form, Film East Pub­lish­ing, is our largest con­trib­u­tor-based out­let. Start­ing in 2020 as an online blog – which is still in oper­a­tion today and hous­es free film, TV and visu­al media arti­cles – Film East Pub­lish­ing has become a space for up-and-com­ing crit­ics, jour­nal­ists and cre­atives to sharp­en their skills and improve their writ­ing, all the while ful­fill­ing their love of cin­e­ma. We pro­vide an in-depth edi­to­r­i­al process that allows writ­ers to make mis­takes and learn how to pro­duce qual­i­ty arti­cles with­out the fear of rejection.

In 2021, we expand­ed into print antholo­gies that focus on spe­cif­ic cin­e­mat­ic gen­res or themes. Our books embrace film the­o­ry and phi­los­o­phy but are writ­ten in a relaxed style to enter­tain all types of film fans. To date, we have released four crit­i­cism col­lec­tions: SCREEN DREAMS, a zine dis­sect­ing the ways music can man­i­fest on screen; Eat­ing the Screen, arti­cles on the cul­ture of food in film and tele­vi­sion; Queer Pro­jec­tions, essays that explore LGBTQIA+ rep­re­sen­ta­tion on screen; and, our newest release, Screen Britain, arti­cles that jour­ney through his­tor­i­cal and con­tem­po­rary British visu­al media to explore nation­al iden­ti­ty through the cin­e­mat­ic lens.

Film East Pub­lish­ing is a slow crit­i­cism out­let. In this age of instant reac­tions and hot-take con­tent, we want our read­ers and writ­ers to become more aware con­sumers, analysing and ques­tion­ing what our media is pro­ject­ing and how it influ­ences our soci­ety. By break­ing away from the indus­try stan­dard of placid reviews and SEO-dri­ven com­mis­sions, we’re ask­ing our audi­ence to grow with us in media lit­er­a­cy, hav­ing them think beyond the sur­face and find depth and mean­ing in the most approach­able form of mod­ern art.

A long-time Film East Pub­lish­ing con­trib­u­tor who lives in the Philip­pines, Jes­si­ca Ann Evan­ge­lista start­ed her jour­nal­ism career with Film East. I watched her writ­ing evolve from a shaky first draft to receiv­ing the most praise from review­ers for her arti­cle in Queer Pro­jec­tions. Jes­si­ca recent­ly start­ed a job work­ing as a jour­nal­ist, and she attrib­uted her career advance­ment to being able to write for Film East:

“I am eter­nal­ly grate­ful for the space Film East gave me when I was still a stu­dent because it tru­ly boost­ed my CV and port­fo­lio, and it gave peo­ple an idea of how much I’m into films and the exper­tise I am lean­ing into.”

This is the real impact of Film East: giv­ing peo­ple – young and old – the con­fi­dence, skills and expe­ri­ence to suc­ceed in any cre­ative path they ven­ture down. I want the Film East organ­i­sa­tion to pro­vide this for ambi­tious film fans all across the globe regard­less of social, eco­nom­ic or envi­ron­men­tal back­grounds. At Film East, we nour­ish tal­ent and teach essen­tial skills to help peo­ple find their poten­tial. Are we all going to be the next Mark Ker­mode? No. But we can pro­vide cru­cial sup­port to make every­one feel like they have a voice and place in a noto­ri­ous­ly unat­tain­able industry.

And you nev­er know – maybe the future Edi­tor-in-Chief of Lit­tle White Lies will get their first pitch accept­ed at Film East.