Criteria, Curation & Selection Policy

Criteria

We support films by filmmakers of marginalised genders.

We define ‘by’ as directed /co-directed, written / co-written, or creatively produced by.

We take an inclusive view on what defines marginalised genders, including those who identify as women, non-binary, trans, intersex, and agender. And an intersectional approach through championing the work of global majority, LGBTQIA+, disabled, working class and otherwise doubly minoritized filmmakers of all ages and from across the UK, all over the world and in all languages.

Any film we support must have a UK distributor in place, or have already screened/have plans to screen at a UK film festival. If a film doesn’t have a UK release/festival premiere in the works we cannot support it yet.

Supported films include fiction, nonfiction, and those that play with boundaries. Any genre, and those which are genre-defying.

We challenge the idea that people of marginalised genders can only tell ‘women’s stories’ or make gender ‘issues’ films – instead we’re interested in broader perspectives on the world and the human condition.

Updated Sept 20 2024

Curation

We’re interested in supporting films with something important to say, or themes to explore. They needn’t offer answers, and in fact can leave us with more questions. The films we support offer interesting conversation starters for us to engage and discuss with an audience and our #ReclaimTheFrame community as part of our events.

We focus also on who is telling the story and on the why and the how. Supported films include fiction, nonfiction, and those that play with boundaries. Any genre, and those which are genre-defying.

Films needn’t be female or non-binary-centered in terms of characters necessarily, and we challenge the idea that people of marginalised genders can only tell ‘women’s stories’ or make gender ‘issues’ films – instead we’re interested in broader perspectives on the world and the human condition.

Furthermore we consider our role to champion films which challenge cinema’s dominant gaze, instead offering a broad vista of voices, representations and perspectives. Given that conventional cinema narratives are largely patriarchal formulas, we take seriously our responsibility to support films that depart from, or defy, convention, in line with our Filmonomics training programme which supports filmmakers to make films in the way they want to make them.

Selection

We canvas views from a number of the team – and beyond, where we feel we need to draw on lived experience that we recognise we don’t have – and prioritise collective discussion.

We avoid ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ and other binary terms in order to encourage us to articulate better what we felt the film was trying to do and how successful it was in doing that.

Through our year-round activities, we aim to support a broad slate of films in terms of intersectional perspectives, internationalism in country of production and audience appeal as well as language, subject, tone and form.

These films are selected on the belief that we are the most appropriate organisation to do the work, that we feel we have a fresh perspective to bring to the conversation, and that we can make a difference to the success of the film by bringing bigger and broader audiences and greater attention to each title we support.