Regional partners include Met Film School, Revolver, Cornerhouse, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, The Watershed Arts Trust and Reel Solutions; number of young people involved has been significantly scaled back after budget concerns.

The BFI today announced 24 regional partners to help deliver its BFI Film Academy Network programme in 2012/13.

Over the next four months, the new partners will work with the BFI and partners Bafta, Creative Skillset and Pinewood Studios on the programme aimed at educating 500 16-19 year-olds about film.

The partners will deliver a minimum of 40 hours of training programmes to participants who will then be eligible to be put forward for a nationally recognised Arts Award. The partners are expected to reveal further details of their courses as they begin to recruit students in the coming weeks.

In March 2013, up to 50 of the young people from the regional programmes will go on to attend a residential Talent Campus. The BFI will announce the delivery partner for this in the New Year.

The academy – which will get £3m funding from the Department of Education over three years – will offer the chance for students to meet and hear from leading industry figures, make films and learn about film history and theory.

This year’s Academy is being treated as a pilot scheme and will only operate in England but the BFI expects to expand the programme to the rest of the UK in 2014.

The Department for Education had initially said 5,000 young people would take part in the scheme, with 200 selected for the Talent Campus, but those numbers have been revised after concern that the scheme’s budget would not be sufficient to cover such a large number of participants and that there would not be enough job opportunities after the training.

Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, commented: “The new academy is open to young people from all backgrounds and will play its part in helping ensure the British film industry remains competitive.”

BFI chief executive Amanda Nevill said: “I am so excited about this really important project. Film and the creative industries as a whole are at the heart of the UK’s economic recovery.

“Film makes a multi-billion contribution to UK GDP, we are the third most important market for film in the world, and our industry is expected to grow significantly in the coming years.

“However, to ensure further growth we must find, encourage and nurture the talent of tomorrow - those with the creativity and skills needed to drive future success in the UK’s film industry. This project is designed to do just that.” 

The 24 partners in 2012/13 are:

East

  • Cambridgeshire Film Consortium (Cambridge)
  • Culture Works Foundation (Norwich)
  • University of Hertfordshire School of Creative Arts (Hatfield, Herts)

East Midlands

  • Broadway Media Centre (Nottingham)
  • CfBT Education Trust (Lincoln)

London

  • CTVC (Central London)
  • Eastside Educational Trust (East London)
  • Met Film School (West London)
  • Revolver Entertainment (West London)
  • The Film and Video Workshop (North London)
  • Young Film Academy (Central London)

North East

  • Beacon Hill Arts and Arpeggio Films (Tyne & Wear and County Durham)
  • Tyneside Cinema (Newcastle)

North West

  • Cornerhouse (Greater Manchester)
  • FACT/ Signal Film and Media (Liverpool and Cumbria)

South East

  • Film Oxford (Oxford)
  • Resource Productions (Slough)
  • Screen South (Maidstone)

South West

  • Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (Bristol)
  • Somerset Film and Video Ltd (Bridgwater, Somerset)
  • The Watershed Arts Trust (Bristol)

West Midlands

  • Thomas Adams School in association with Wem Town Hall and University of Wolverhampton (Wolverhampton and Shropshire)

Yorkshire and Humber

  • Reel Solutions (Leeds)
  • The Sheffield Media & Exhibition Centre (Sheffield)

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