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Applications for Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival’s residency are now open for applications
Image from Paul Rooney’s Still At Large
Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival (BFMAF) is a celebration of cinema, an international homage to the art of filmmaking, all set in the historic border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. They’ve made the important announcement that applications are now open for their annual artist’s residency.
The festival is now in its twelfth year, with the inaugural festival taking place back in September 2005. With a now established reputation for ambitious programming, showcasing all from live performance, film premieres and moving image installations. The 2015 Festival programme included artists Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, Phil Collins and Deimantas Narkevičius alongside new commissions from Paul Rooney, 2015 Jarman Award Winner Seamus Harahan and a performance programme curated by CIRCA Projects. Canadian artists Julia Feyrer and Tamara Henderson were the recipients of BFMAF’s Inntravel Award for Short Film.
The theme for this year’s festival is ‘X’, the indefinable, the censored, the under-represented, the exponential, the quintessential, X for your vote, X marks the spot, and X for your kiss, it’s a broad pallet that is hoped will inspire some incredible creativity.
The residency offers the opportunity for a moving image artist to be part of the festival in September 2016, spending up to 6 months living in Berwick-upon-Tweed, and utilising the wealth of unique locations, heritage sites and allowing those to inspire the work created.
2015’s artist in residence Paul Rooney couldn’t speak higher of his experience. “The residency provided hugely valuable time – time to wander, to research, to read, and to make. The fact that my new work would be included in the Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival at the end of my residency, alongside so many brilliant works and artists, was an ideal focus for the residency period, giving a necessary concentration for all of the speculative thought and experiment!”
With £8000 of funding available, private accommodation and studio space in Berwick-upon-Tweed, and with the creation showcased as part of 2016’s Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, taking place between the 21st and 25th September, this is an incredible opportunity to be snapped up, ahead of the residency which begins in April. The deadline is Monday 18th January 2016, 5pm, so get those applications in soon, with more details and how to apply for the residency, here.
There is also still time for UK based artists to apply for The Artists’ Cut, a unique film commission and development programme with a budget of £5000 for each of the three selected artists. Applications will close at 12 noon on Monday 11th January, so for more information on how to apply, take a look here.
