Justine Atkinson
Festival Producer, Africa in Motion Film Festival
Key Expertise: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Other expertise: Audience Development, Programming
"I have been working as the Festival Producer of the Africa in Motion film festival since the beginning of 2013. During that time I have worked in many areas of the festival organisation, including programming and audience development, equality and diversity, fundraising, and management. Related to my experience of programming and curation for diverse audiences in Africa in Motion I am currently pursuing a PhD on African film curation and participatory programming at the University of Glasgow. I am also the founder and director of Aya Distribution, an international sales and distribution company with a focus on African cinema.
Within Africa in Motion I have developed a collaborative approach to curation, ensuring that no one voice has sole auteurship within the curation of the festival. Through what we have termed participatory programming we have created a non-hierarchical space with a variety of voices curating, selecting and suggesting films for the festival. This comes out of a recognition of white privilege and the space white people take up in the arts industry in Scotland and the fact that the festival was dominated by white curators for a number of years, which necessitated opening up space for new voices within the organisation. As a result of this we have developed an extensive diversity policy and a programming strategy through which we work community groups, BAME artists, curators of colour and students, including them within the selection of films. Over the last four years I have run Programming Traineeships specifically targeting candidates from BAME backgrounds, worked with community groups and other programmes to ensure that we bring diverse voices into the curation of the festival. All of these initiatives have changed the shape of the festival, bringing in new films and strands. They have also helped us to diversify our staff team, as a number of trainees moved into paid positions resulting in around 60% of the paid staff being from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) background, something we hope to continue building upon.
During my time with Africa in Motion I have developed strategies to ensure that we reach a diverse range of audiences, including cinephiles, young people and people from marginalised backgrounds such as BAME or LGBT communities. Strategies include:
Venue selection: We have found that the use of space is also important for ensuring the festival is inclusive, so in addition to traditional cinema venues we also use community venues, churches, cafes and more. Using different spaces helped the festival to attract diverse audiences, as each venue is frequented by people from specific demographics.
Accessibility: We create both free and paid screenings, and work with partners to make screenings free for refugee and asylum seekers, and those on low income. We also ensure that spaces are safe, accessible and familiar to BAME LGBTQ+ people in Scotland, through for example, offering gender neutral toilets, post-screening discussions led by key people in the LGBTQ+ community in Scotland, and film screenings dealing with topics related and relevant to their lives.
Diverse content: We screen films from as many different countries on the African as possible, including as many different filmmaking styles, genres and narratives as possible, in order cater for different tastes, contexts of viewing and aesthetic appreciation for film."
Other expertise: Audience Development, Programming
"I have been working as the Festival Producer of the Africa in Motion film festival since the beginning of 2013. During that time I have worked in many areas of the festival organisation, including programming and audience development, equality and diversity, fundraising, and management. Related to my experience of programming and curation for diverse audiences in Africa in Motion I am currently pursuing a PhD on African film curation and participatory programming at the University of Glasgow. I am also the founder and director of Aya Distribution, an international sales and distribution company with a focus on African cinema.
Within Africa in Motion I have developed a collaborative approach to curation, ensuring that no one voice has sole auteurship within the curation of the festival. Through what we have termed participatory programming we have created a non-hierarchical space with a variety of voices curating, selecting and suggesting films for the festival. This comes out of a recognition of white privilege and the space white people take up in the arts industry in Scotland and the fact that the festival was dominated by white curators for a number of years, which necessitated opening up space for new voices within the organisation. As a result of this we have developed an extensive diversity policy and a programming strategy through which we work community groups, BAME artists, curators of colour and students, including them within the selection of films. Over the last four years I have run Programming Traineeships specifically targeting candidates from BAME backgrounds, worked with community groups and other programmes to ensure that we bring diverse voices into the curation of the festival. All of these initiatives have changed the shape of the festival, bringing in new films and strands. They have also helped us to diversify our staff team, as a number of trainees moved into paid positions resulting in around 60% of the paid staff being from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) background, something we hope to continue building upon.
During my time with Africa in Motion I have developed strategies to ensure that we reach a diverse range of audiences, including cinephiles, young people and people from marginalised backgrounds such as BAME or LGBT communities. Strategies include:
Venue selection: We have found that the use of space is also important for ensuring the festival is inclusive, so in addition to traditional cinema venues we also use community venues, churches, cafes and more. Using different spaces helped the festival to attract diverse audiences, as each venue is frequented by people from specific demographics.
Accessibility: We create both free and paid screenings, and work with partners to make screenings free for refugee and asylum seekers, and those on low income. We also ensure that spaces are safe, accessible and familiar to BAME LGBTQ+ people in Scotland, through for example, offering gender neutral toilets, post-screening discussions led by key people in the LGBTQ+ community in Scotland, and film screenings dealing with topics related and relevant to their lives.
Diverse content: We screen films from as many different countries on the African as possible, including as many different filmmaking styles, genres and narratives as possible, in order cater for different tastes, contexts of viewing and aesthetic appreciation for film."