Crossing Boundaries - BFI - British Film Institute

The Study is commissioned by the UK Film Council, Arts Council England, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It is
based upon an engagement with six venues across England, each of which is working hard to develop their position as critical
brokers and innovators for the creative economy and as progressive partners in developing education, widening participation and
engaging with increasingly diverse communities as a key opportunity. The venues are:
- Bristol, Watershed
- Liverpool, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT)
- Manchester, Cornerhouse
- Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Tyneside Cinema
- Nottingham, Broadway
- Sheffield Showroom/Workstation
The six venues share a common role and function: they retain specialised cinema programming at their core. Each is developing a
different approach and response to the opportunities and challenges of digitalisation and to the specific context of their host city;
each has set out a unique mix of facilities, programmes and services; but each situates cinema (quality programming and the
‘cinema experience’) at the heart of their offer, identity and core delivery principles.
“The present audience of the specialised cinema was largely created by the specialised cinemas themselves – a task which required, and
still requires, cinema owners and company directors who must not only be good enough business people to be prepared to create their
own market (always a risky undertaking), but people to whom artistic quality and the education of public taste must appear more
important objects than mere box office receipts.”
The Function of the Specialised Cinema
Elizabeth M Harris, Penguin Film Review 6, 1948
Introduction 14
tom fleming / creative consultancy
UK Film Council
in association with
Arts Council England and the Arts Humanities Research Council