Northampton Film Festival 2023 - here’s everything you need to know to get involved

Northampton Film Festival will be back in 2023, Screen Northants has announced, along with plans on how to get involved.

48hr Film Challenges and Networking starts again at the end of June 2022 with the first of six free challenges and networking events throughout the year.

Collaborating with the University of Northampton and in recognition of Pride and Refugee Week, Screen Northants will announce the theme on Friday June 24 at 6pm on their social media, then people have 48 hours to make a short film under 10 minutes on that theme and deliver it to them at V and B Northampton by 6pm on the Sunday.

The Sunday is also their free networking event in the upstairs bar where all the entries will be watched on the night. The challenges are open to anyone as long as a member of your team lives or studies in Northants. The winning film from each challenge goes into a Winner of Winners category at the festival in May.

A new schools competition is now open where Northants schools can make a drama short film, on any theme, up to 10 minutes long specially for the festival before May 2023. New for 2023 there will be two prizes - £2,000 of film equipment for both the winning primary school and the winning Secondary School/FE. Submissions are free and all entries will be screened in a cinema as part of the festival.

Screen Northants TV is a new ‘television channel’ looking for young people and young adult volunteers 11-25yrs to produce a weekly show on the creative and cultural scene in Northants.

Film and television production company Screen Northants set up the festival to shout about Northamptonshire and its talent, which inspired the 2023 theme ‘Scream Northants’. SN TV will be doing just that throughout the year thanks to the support of Nenescape and Northamptonshire Community Foundation.

More details for all of the initiatives above can be found at www.northamptonfilmfestival.co.uk/getinvolved/

In addition to this, with the support of Northamptonshire Community Foundation, Screen Northants are offering free workshops to Northampton Primary and Secondary schools until the end of August 2022 to help schools prepare to make their own film. Places are limited so interested schools are encouraged to contact [email protected] as soon as they can to discuss the options.

Becky Adams, producer at Screen Northants, said: “We’ve got big ambitions for Northampton Film Festival so we’re excited to start Screen Northants TV as part of the festival as well as increase the number of young people engaging with us from across the county through our Schools Competition. 2022 saw the first year of our new Northants Film & Television Expo which was a really exciting addition to the Creative and Cultural calendar for Northamptonshire and we wanted to make sure we started 2023’s festival with a bang too.”

For further information about the festival visit www.northamptonfilmfestival.co.uk