Cultivate: Inspiring Future Audiences is to return this year following a successful inaugural run in 2012.

With support from the Creative Skillset Film Skills Fund as part of A Bigger Future 2 – the UK film skills strategy – the programme will provide film professionals the necessary skills for the exhibition sector and develop film education programmes in cinemas and festivals, aiming to increase audiences for cultural cinema.

The three-day course will give aspiring film educators the skills and confidence to develop education programmes for cinemas, film festivals and schemes such as rural cinema initiatives.

Adrian Wootton, CEO of Film London and the British Film Commission, said: “After the inaugural and successful Cultivate training programme, it is wonderful to be able to offer this opportunity again in 2013, thanks to support from Creative Skillset.

“With Cultivate, I believe we have identified and addressed the lack of professional training and development opportunities for film educators within exhibition. Film education should be an integral part of an exhibitor’s audience development strategy as it plays a vital role in growing audiences and enriching young people’s cultural experience with film.”

Cultivate is in accordance with the BFI’s five year strategy, Film Forever, and recommendations from the Film Policy Review, which identified that placing film education as the forefront of audience development plans can ensure the largest and broadest audiences will consume a range of films for years to come.

From an industry perspective the course also aims to encourage growth in the exhibition based film education sector; an area which, to date, has not previously had the benefit of formal training or development opportunities.

Dan Simmons, head of film at Creative Skillset said: “We are delighted to continue supporting Cultivate with Film London. This is an innovative programme for film exhibition professionals that helps them strategise on how to reach out to schools and young people and develop enthusiastic, informed and intelligent film audiences for the future.

“This intervention complements the BFI film education strategy in educating young people in film, and we look forward to mapping out the business impact on Cultivate participants and their organisations in the future”.

Topics on the course include how to inspire youngsters, navigating school curriculums, programming suitable films and developing study guides, issues around licensing and child protection and engaging a range of audiences as well as stakeholders and potential partners.

Last year’s course represented organisations such as the BFI, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Reel Solutions and Glasgow Youth Film Festival while distributors, including Soda Pictures, who have successfully incorporated film education elements into their theatrical releases, presented case studies on best practice.

Inviting applications from across the UK, Cultivate is set to launch later this year. The project will also offer travel and small organisation bursaries to attract a broad range of applicants nationwide. It is expected that the final timetable of training will be tailored to suit the needs of those attending.