This webpage outlines further details within the FAN Film Exhibition Fund Guidelines to include:

• Additional Considerations: Environmental sustainability, safeguarding and bullying and harassment
• Eligible and ineligible expenses
• How proposals will be assessed
• Decisions and Feedback
• Complains and Appeals

Additional Considerations

Environmental Sustainability*

We are committed to minimising the negative environmental impact of the work we support and ask all funding recipients to contribute to this aim. In your proposal, please summarise steps you are taking to minimise the environmental impact of your activity. 

Some inspiring examples of exhibitors working in this area include: Scott Cinemas, HOME, Curzon and Depot. The BFI has several recommended resources that may be useful when planning around sustainability here. 

Bullying and Harassment*

Bullying, harassment and racism have no place in our industries, and we expect all organisations we fund to share our commitment to this principle. The BFI and BAFTA have developed a set of principles and zero-tolerance guidance in consultation with organisations, unions and industry bodies across the film, television and games industry in response to urgent and systemic issues. These documents can be found in the BFI Bullying and harassment prevention hub. We ask all applicants to engage with these principles by, as a minimum, reading these documents and sharing them within your organisation.  

Applicants are asked to confirm that they have, or intend to put in place, an anti-bullying and harassment policy for their organisation. Our funding agreements include a warranty seeking compliance with all applicable legislation and codes of practice relating to this. 

If you do not currently have a policy in place, please get in touch and we can signpost you to additional resources to help you to develop your policy. 

Safeguarding*

For initiatives involving children, young people or vulnerable adults, applicants are asked to share their safeguarding and child protection policies along with their proposal. If you do not currently have a policy in place, please get in touch and we can signpost you to additional resources to help you to develop your policy. 

*Environmental sustainability, safeguarding and bullying and harassment are not formal assessment criteria, but the information you provide will be used to gauge how we may support you further in this area. If a proposed action will incur modest additional costs, you can include these in your budget for consideration. 

Use of Funding

Each organisation will have its individual needs – however, broadly speaking, the FAN Film Exhibition Fund can support the following costs:

Eligible Expenses

• Film rights and print transport
• Activity-specific staffing costs – e.g. curation, marketing or project management expenses 
• Venue hire and activity-specific equipment costs 
• Marketing, advertising and PR campaigns
• Event costs for enhanced screenings – e.g. speaker, talent or artists fees 
• Volunteer and evaluation expenses
• Accessibility costs – e.g. creating accessible supporting materials, subtitling fees
• Outreach and community inclusion costs – e.g. providing transport for isolated audiences, 
• Audience development expenses – e.g. young programmers workshops
• Rights clearances and curation fees for screen heritage materials
• Costs related to online activity such as web platform of hosting fees 

This list is not exhaustive and other items may be considered.

All proposed spending should contribute to the activity proposed. Beyond this, there are some areas not suitable for support from the Film Exhibition Fund.

Ineligible expenses 

• Filmmaking costs (including workshops), support for filmmakers to develop or distribute their own work, or for programmes that exclusively engage filmmaker audiences 
• Capital costs covering building repairs
• Additional health and safety measures required due to Covid-19 including the purchasing of PPE
• Programmes entirely comprised of free events, un-ticketed events or screenings where audience numbers cannot be reported 
• General running costs of organisations not specifically related to the activity
• Activity that should be covered by statutory education, including events taking place on school grounds/in school hours
• Events not primarily focused on film exhibition 
• Activity covered by existing funding arrangements 
• Programmes that duplicate provision in the same area 
• Activity taking place in a venue not open to the public – eg. members only venues
• The set-up of new film clubs and opening of new cinema venues

How will proposals be assessed?

Your proposal will be assessed by the Film Hub South West Team with the input of two external independent advisors. They will look at:

• Activity eligibility: does the proposed activity meet the priorities and timescale of the fund? 
• Audience reach: are projected admissions realistic? Is there a clear need for the activity – does it provide audiences with access to films otherwise unavailable locally? Focus areas and subsidy per head will be a consideration. Whilst we appreciate projecting admissions in the current context will be difficult, please provide estimates.
• Impact: Will the proposal re-engage audiences with culturally valuable film programming? Does the activity respond to any of the fund’s other key focus areas? What is the wider potential impact of the proposed programme?    
• Legacy: How does the activity fit into the organisation’s longer-term audience development plans? Are there partnerships in place to deliver the activity effectively and sustainably? 
• Organisational experience: is the organisation able to carry out the proposed activity, including delivering marketing, audience development and evaluation plans?  What does success look like and what will the organisation learn from the project?
• Budget: are all reasonable costs considered? Does the budget balance and are all costs eligible? Have access costs and income been included? Does the project represent value for money? Have appropriate staffing costs been included?
• Partnership & Match-funding: Film Hub South West is not able to support 100% of costs and would expect to see some partnership support whether in cash, volunteer time or other in-kind contributions is an important demonstration that there is genuine support for the activity and potential added value.
• Geographical spread: We seek to ensure a wide range of organisations and areas are receiving Film Hub South West support, to enable audiences across the region to benefit from increased access to cultural cinema beyond the mainstream offer.
• BFI Diversity Standards: does the proposal clearly address the BFI Diversity Standards? Will activity address under-representation among audiences, on screen or in the workforce?

Please note that we expect this fund to be oversubscribed and may not be able to fund your activity even if it meets the criteria.   

Decisions and Feedback

Unsuccessful proposals

If you are unsuccessful in your proposal, you will be contacted by email. Being unsuccessful does not prevent you from accessing future Hub opportunities. 

Successful proposals

If your proposal is successful, the assessment panel may discuss any required amendments and wish to see a revised plan before confirming funding. This process can take additional time. Activity timelines will need to accommodate this. 

If there are no recommendations or amendments to be made, you will be sent a confirmation email setting out the terms and conditions attached to the funding. 

These will cover payment information, crediting guidelines and monitoring and reporting requirements. All funded activity will need to survey their audiences using our standard template – please bear this in mind when planning your evaluation strategies. 

Complaints and Appeals

Watershed Arts Trust is the Film Hub Lead Organisation for the South West as part of BFI’s UK wide Film Audience Network with support from National Lottery funding.  

In relation to this fund, the Film Hub South West team’s funding decision is final. Inevitably, applications will be turned down and some applicants may be disappointed by this result. Formal appeals against the final decision will not be considered unless the applicant has good cause to believe that the procedures for processing the application were not adhered to or applied in such as a way as to prejudice the outcome of the application. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Film Hub South West / Watershed Managing Producer Maddy Probst in the first instance. 

Email: maddy.p@watershed.co.uk / 

However, if this is not appropriate for any reason, please refer to Watershed’s Complaints Policy. 

Getting in touch

Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions, concerns or specific access requirements regarding the application process or guidelines. We are very happy to discuss your project with you before you apply and will advise and support wherever possible.

In the first instance contact: filmhub@watershed.co.uk

To find out more about Film Hub South West and what we do, visit: watershed.co.uk/filmhub.

Please note: these guidelines are subject to change.  

Film Hub South West reserves the right to review and alter its policies, procedures and assessment criteria.