Bonfire fuels Bedford Film Festival 2nd successful year

Bonfire Creative Intelligence is delighted to share in the success of Bedford Film Festival‘s second year with early attendee figures showing the festival is growing in popularity.

This year, the festival focused its workshops into just one day, creating a day of learning for future filmmakers at Bedford College’s Southbank Arts Centre. This allowed the team to then run uninterrupted screenings in their main venue at The Higgins Bedford.

Films this year ranged from the Italian Oscar winner ‘La Grande Bellezza’ to children’s classic ‘Aladdin’, and from Polish film ‘Ida’ to coming-of-age US indie film ‘Palo Alto’.

Encouraged by Bonfire, the festival team also opened up one of their screening slots to groups wanting to show their own films. The first organisation to take up this was Bedford Creative Arts who screened the excellent documentary ‘Sign Painters’, which looked at the excellent, but dying, art of freehand sign painting.

Bonfire has been instrumental in helping Bedford Film Festival to grow. We’ve provided advice on community engagement, as well as updating and maintaining their website. Alongside this, we’ve provided the services of our Strategic Development Director, Stephen Judge, who has worked closely with Bedford Film Festival’s own marketing teams to advise on branding consistency, event organisation and support of on and off-line marketing campaigns.

Since its creation in 2013, Bedford Film Festival has worked hard to not only encourage local people to try new film genres, but also to support and encourage new venues to screen films. To that end, they have supported and advised Bedford Borough Council and The Higgins Bedford in the installation of a permanent projector booth.

This ‘upgrade’ to the museum and gallery means projectors can be housed outside of the screening room, allowing attendees to watch films and presentations without mechanical noise disruption. It’s hoped this will encourage other groups in the local area to explore screening films themselves and improve conference facilities at the museum.

Just like Bonfire, Bedford Film Festival is always supporting those who match their own ideals. To find out how they are inspiring others to bring film variety to Bedford, and other screenings they have planned, visit: www.BedfordFilmFestival.org