(COPY)
We are the UK’s lead organisation for screen culture
We believe society needs stories.
Film, television and the moving image bring them to life, helping us to connect and understand each other better.
We share the stories of yesterday, search for the stories of today, and shape the stories of tomorrow.
We are a charity, and our mission is to ensure that screen culture in all its diversity is accessible for everyone.
We are the custodians of the national collection of film and television at the BFI National Archive.
Our unrivalled cultural programmes and festivals bring new and past cinema to audiences across the UK.
Our education and talent development programmes provide fundamental opportunities for the creative forces of tomorrow’s screen industries.
Whatever your interest in film and the moving image, we have something for you to discover.
Most of us engage with screen culture in our daily lives. It informs and defines us, and continues to grow as an art form and a creative industry.
We want to transform the way in which people can access our programmes, appreciate screen culture and gain skills and jobs across the UK.
Screen culture isn’t standing still and neither are we.
We grow and care for the world’s largest film and television archive
Since 1935, we have recorded the evolution of the moving image at the BFI National Archive.
The national collection of film and television spans celluloid formats, tape, digital media, paper collections, photography and more.
Covering the entire history of the moving image, it is one of the greatest collections of its kind.
Each year, our archivists and technicians discover and restore films from across the history of cinema, preserving the art form and enabling audiences around the world to access them.
We want to create opportunities for everyone to use, learn from and enjoy our nation’s collection of screen heritage, and establish the BFI National Archive as the most open collection of moving image in the world.
The BFI holds both the past and the future in the same gesture of reverence and respect. The archive builds the house: our filmmakers – past, present and future – light it up.
We offer audiences the widest range of UK and international screen culture
Our cultural programme, from BFI Southbank to cinemas and homes across the UK and beyond, ensures that everyone can see something different.
We want to welcome new audiences into a year-round and lifelong relationship with screen culture and the BFI, and we curate world-class programmes so that everyone can enjoy a new film, an unfamiliar voice, or a previously untold story.
Our film festivals are world-renowned, offering our audiences the opportunity to experience the best new film, TV, immersive and XR work from around the world at the BFI London Film Festival, and BFI Flare – the biggest and most vibrant LGBTQIA+ film festival in Europe.
Our cultural programme encourages audiences to discover new and historic voices, and different forms of screen storytelling.
We want the BFI to continue to be known as an open house for the public to discover and enjoy film and the moving image.
We support creativity and actively seek out the next generation of UK filmmakers
We passionately believe that every young person who wishes to pursue a career in film deserves support.
We welcome around 20,000 young people each year through events at BFI Southbank, online, and across the UK. Our educational events respond to the changing demands of the curriculum, and we have the ambition to enable all 7 million children in the UK to access BFI programmes and collections during their school years.
Our education programme helps to break down barriers for young creatives interested in following their passions and working towards a career in the film industry.
This year-round programme includes specialised courses, workshops, masterclasses, nationwide festivals, and mentoring initiatives for emerging talent looking to build their careers in the UK film industry and beyond.
The work we do reframes the value of screen culture with policymakers, educators and parents, and supports a skilled and sustainable workforce that reflects the UK population.
It’s no exaggeration to say that coming to the BFI, meeting the people there and taking part in their education programmes put me on my career path.
I have no idea what I’d be doing without the BFI.
We ensure the continued growth and profile of the UK’s screen industries
We have a unique remit to champion and strengthen the cultural, social and economic impact of the screen sectors, in the UK and across the globe.
Alongside our cultural activity, we also distribute National Lottery funding, a powerful tool for driving positive change and promoting equity, inclusion, and better working conditions.
We drive growth and international success across the screen sector, and address market failures through our funding schemes, policy and evidence.
The BFI invests a significant proportion of lottery funding each year into nurturing and developing new and emerging talent and creating great British films through the BFI Filmmaking Fund.
We work with film organisations and leading cultural venues across the UK to provide professional development, networking, and short film and early feature development funding.
Our priority is to seek out and invest in the most promising filmmakers and creative risk-takers.
Over 500 funding awards annually
supporting shorts, feature films, audience projects, skills programmes and more
We invite the public to share in our passion and knowledge for the moving image
A passion for film and storytelling goes beyond the cinema.
Beyond our home at BFI Southbank, our audiences engage with the breadth of our art form through BFI Player, Sight & Sound magazine, BFI DVD & BluRay and theatrical releases, and UK-wide partnerships.
Our digital channels are ever-growing, with more than 7.5M UK and 16M worldwide sessions per year on our website, and over 10M annual streaming views on BFI Player and our BFI YouTube channel.
The way we tell stories and experience them on screen is ever-evolving across video games, virtual production, XR, immersive and new forms – and we are at the forefront.
As creators enter new frontiers, we will work to represent and nurture them, as well as increasing public appreciation of these new forms of storytelling and their cultural value.
We all have something in common; the love of cinema. The BFI keeps it going.
Spike Lee, BFI Fellow
Friends of the British Film Institute
Over the next decade, the BFI will transform access to screen culture and jobs, sharing our passion for cinema, TV and the moving image, as well as our expertise in screen heritage, cultural programming, inclusion and skills development on an international stage.
We also need to invest heavily into the BFI National Archive, to ensure that we can continue to operate world-class preservation and conversation work and deliver on our ambition of making it the most open-moving image collection in the world.
We will only achieve these ambitions through increased partnership and philanthropic giving, including in the US.
The Friends of the BFI is a California-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation that welcomes donors in the US who are connected through a love of film. Through their tax-effective gifts, our supporters effect change within the areas of the BFI’s work that inspire them.
To be part of our future, don't hesitate to get in touch.
Together, we can do even more.
Built with Shorthand