Birkenhead International Film Festival

We will be hosting the Fourth Birkenhead International Film Festival on the 21st October 2023. Hot on heels of our SOLD OUT 2022 festival. We are delighted to bring you our 4th festival, this year.

The BIFF brings together a collective of filmmakers to explore the art of film from a varied range of backgrounds, filmographies and genres.

Birkenhead International Film Festival is all about bringing the world to Birkenhead and so for our 4th Edition of the BIFF we are exploring the theme of ‘World-building’.

What do we define as world building?

World-Building is often described as the process of constructing a world, and often imaginary ones. World-building we feel is a staple tennent of the film industry, as writers and makers create experiences in film that transport us as viewers into new worlds and universes of their making. We want to celebrate this as part of the festival this year. We want you to let us into your world, we will champion and celebrate the world you have created through film.

For film submissions we want the term world-building to encompass all genres and is of course free to your interpretation of the phrase but to give you an example we have explored some of the following themes, narratives and topics within our definition that we are hoping to discover in the submissions process.

We would look for films that may explore:
- Visions of the past, present or future.
- Films that explore new worlds, visionary landscapes, dystopian and utopian portrayals of life.
- Films could be person centred
- Films could explore class, discrimination, exclusion, global majority, lgbtq+, gender, disability, and underrepresented groups.
- Can explore history, shared memory, folklore and collective past.
- Films can explore realist, surreal and abstract films.

We are looking for existing works that explore the theme to showcase at our annual festival which will be shown in a heritage location in Birkenhead. We encourage submissions from all genres, and have a run time of up to a maximum of 30 minutes in length.

We are looking forward to seeing your submissions and we are confident that this will be our best year yet.

What is Convenience Gallery?

Convenience is a not for profit, creative arts platform based in Birkenhead, UK. Our programmes aim to make arts & creativity a part of everyday life. Our work is shaped by and for the community here in Birkenhead alongside the national artistic and creative community.

We use our platform to promote and advocate for creative people nationally, and to inspire people. We run free and affordable events, exhibitions, installations, workshops, labs, creative courses, and artistic support. We believe anywhere can be a space for culture and run our programming across multiple venues and spaces in the area.

Our role in supporting the BIFF is to work with independent festival producers and curators Ben Loveland and David Harrison to help continue to bring independent and international film and filmmakers to new audiences in Birkenhead. Whilst also providing a platform to filmmakers across the globe to showcase work.

For the fourth year of BIFF we are also looking to implement a space for one of the film blocks to be focussed on Northern UK based filmmakers. There is a significantly lower percentage of opportunities for northern filmmakers in the UK and we want to ensure the festival provides an opportunity for makers living and working in the north of the UK. Whilst still championing and celebrating films from across the world.

We are also as a team excited as ever to showcase filmmakers from across the globe. With previous selection at festivals coming from 32 different countries and The BIFF Audience choice award having gone to filmmakers from Mexico, France, Cyprus, and United Kingdom. 92 filmmakers have showcased their work with us so far and previous filmmakers have gone on to showcase work as prestigious festivals globally too.

Each year we have also had a partnership with Scenegraph Studios, who have brought new technology and digital media to the festival. They have created AI bot generated films from audience prompts and showcased VR films during the festival.

We also have established partnerships with Northern Fortress Films ahead of this years festival.

2023 will be our most ambitious festival yet and we can wait to build the programme with you. We dream of a world full of filmmakers and thank you for taking the time to apply for this year's festival.