Live Cinema EU
Live Cinema
Audience Development
England
2016
Total project grant (euros)
51,909
Programme
Creative Europe
Sub-programme
MEDIA
Funding scheme
Audience Development
Call number
22/2015
Call publication date
30 Nov 2015
Application deadline
3 Mar 2016
Result publication date
6 Jun 2016
Number of partners in project
6
Lead organisation
Live Cinema (UK)
Partners
King's College London (UK);
University of Brighton (UK);
Reykjavik International Film Festival (IS);
Motovun Film Festival (HR);
New Horizons International Film Festival (PL)
Live Cinema EU took place between November 2016 and November 2017. The project brought together for the first time international leaders in creating live cinema events (film screenings enhanced with live music, theatrical performance or increased audience participation), to explore whether audience size for European films can be increased through the development of live elements at film screenings as part of core festival programming.
The Live Cinema EU project aimed to replicate the success of such events across Europe, utilising European films. Three European film festival partners, plus Hull 2017 UK City of Culture, worked with Live Cinema UK, King’s College London and the University of Brighton over a one year period in the area of live cinema.
Live Cinema EU's objectives were to:
- Bring together regions working in isolation
- Establish live cinema events as a novel method of attracting audiences to European films
- Create sustainability for new live cinema work
- Establish current knowledge of live cinema in host countries and new learning opportunities
The participating festivals Motovun Film Festival (Croatia), T-Mobile New Horizons Film Festival (Wroclaw, Poland) and Reykjavik Film Festival (Iceland) were selected as partners for their history of exciting screening locations and live soundtrack events, but had never engaged internationally with the concept of live cinema.
Utilising international learning from the UK, the programme consisted of:
- 3 workshop/seminars in host countries to establish the current scope of live cinema events in that country, with visiting experts from the UK, to inspire programming ideas and cross-country learning.
- Four final new live cinema events based on European films; one in each host country plus Hull, UK City of Culture 2017
- Audience evaluation and interaction at each event plus build of a bespoke digital platform by project partners Boombeam to encourage audience interaction and data collection
Read our blog with Lisa Brook, Director of Live Cinema UK, about the programme, live cinema and the benefits of Creative Europe's Audience Development scheme.
On Creative Europe funding, Lisa Brook said:
"Creative Europe's support has brought Live Cinema UK together with three of the most innovative film festivals in Europe who we would never otherwise get to work with on such amazing new commissions and audience development activity."
Look at our 2016 Results Report for a comprehensive overview of the support Creative Europe gives to film festivals seeking to expand audiences for European film.





