What is SPRINGBOARD?
Established in 2020, BIFA Springboard is an annual programme to support UK based filmmakers who are currently working on their second feature film. The programme offers training, mentoring and networking whilst building a cohort of filmmakers at a similar career level. You can find out about our previous Springboard programmes and cohorts here
This 25/26 iteration – BIFA Springboard: Genre – is specifically for producers and writers working in or aspiring to work within Genre and will offer a mixture of technical and professional training, mentoring, networking and access to resources, so that the participants will be better equipped to deal with the huge variety of challenges they face on a daily basis, whilst also developing a selected project.
The programme will run from March to November 2025 and will include a mixture of training sessions, panels, networking and one-to-one mentoring, with a combination of online and in person delivery. The programme is supported by Anton.
Who is it for?
This year we will be focusing on producers and writers in the early to experienced phase of their career. Producers must have made (and released) a successful debut feature (festival and/or awards recognition, and/or formal distribution of some sort), and be actively working on their second fiction feature which must fit our criteria for ‘genre’ (Genre meaning: action, thriller, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, dystopia, or genre hybrid e.g. rom-com, action-comedy). Writers must have at least one feature credit, or significant TV writing credits, and have a genre fiction feature film script in development.
What does BIFA Springboard: GENRE include?
- Mentoring over a 8 month period with a mentor specifically matched to your needs.
- Networking sessions with your fellow cohort, financiers and funders, HODs and programme speakers and partners. Sessions will be a mixture of facilitated workshops/training and panels and will include the following topics:
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- Financing, budgeting and scheduling
- Healthy and sustainable productions
- Editing and rewriting
- Funding – traditional, non-traditional, co-production and international financing
- Sales, distribution and marketing
- Scaling up
- Dignity at work, recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce
- Building a slate, sustaining a career and leveraging your debut
- Legal: managing contracts, employees and freelancers
- Building confidence and honing your creative voice, including through pitch practice
When does it happen?
The first welcome session will take place in March along with the first of the one-to-one mentoring sessions. Panels, training sessions and mentoring will continue monthly until November 2025.
How to apply
BIFA believes that diversity in the film industry is paramount to its future success, and through our programmes we want to be supporting and developing talent who reflect the full diversity of the UK today. Whilst this programme is open to all producers and writers who meet the criteria we are especially keen to receive applications from producers that are from groups currently under-represented within the film industry, including people from under-represented ethnic backgrounds, D/deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent people, women, non-binary people, LGBTQ+ people and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds plus those based outside London.
In order to apply for the BIFA Springboard: Genre programme, you’ll need to fill in the application form here.
The deadline to apply is Sunday 19th January 2025
If you have any questions, or would like this information in another format, please get in touch via hello@bifa.film
