Setting Up A Film Club

Selfish Giant

Hi. I'm toying with the idea of setting up a film club. I don't want to get into specifics here, but I'm from a fairly run-of-the-mill town in the sticks. Thankfully, there is an Arts Centre here that shows screenings each week. We're a few months behind, so we've only just seen stuff like Mr. Turner, but we're lucky to have even that much. There's also a big name cinema here that shows the usual Hollywood material. Very occasionally they'll have a midweek screening of something more substantial, but that's about it. Also, there's weekly screenings in another Arts Centre in a nearby town. The screenings there are a bit more imaginative. Much more foreign language, etc, and they screen them about six weeks after places like the IFI. I might be able to get a group to travel out of town occasionally, but at the very least we'd have a film each week at home, so that's a start at least.

The weekly screenings in the Arts Centre aren't very well attended, with the exception of Mr Turner, so I'm getting a bit frustrated by the whole thing. I regularly travel to Dublin on a Saturday and spend the entire day in two or three different cinemas, so don't worry about me, I'll always get my cinema fix. I just wish there was more in my own town. In fairness, I've no right to expect more than one screening per week in a place like this, because the population simply isn't there. If you whittled Dublin down to 25,000 people it would have the same problem. It's Mass Appeal versus Niche Interest and there's only one winner there.

Anyway, I guess I'd like to do something for films fans in my town. Even if it was only a small group of us. Just have discussions about the films we see in the Arts Centre, screen cult comedies in a bar and have a drink and a laugh together. Maybe arrange day trips to places like Dublin for people without transport. We're only about 80 minutes away.

Finally, there'a a Youth Centre in town and they occasionally screen Saturday morning films. Recently they screened the Swedish film 'We Are The Best'. That's a great development for the town and it's something I never had as a teenager. I know I'm being very idealistic here, but I'd love if there was even more for them. Maybe that's something that I could try to become involved in.

Has anyone any experience in this area?

Thanks.

Edit: I should say that while the screenings in the Arts Centre aren't well attended, I still feel that there's room for improvement. On those rare occasions when the commercial cinema shows a good film it's usually well attended. I guess people prefer the cinema experience. i.e. good sound and overpriced food.

Catcher7791

I think Access Cinema are your first and best stop,as they support exactly this kind of endeavour all over the country.

Skerries

I was enquiring about this recently and it is very convoluted and a bit pricey, this was the reply

Thank you for your query about setting up a film club and screening
>films from DVD.
>
>To begin with I would suggest that if you have not already had a chance
>to do so, please have a look at our website
><http://www.accesscinema.ie/>www.accesscinema.ie
>and in particular at the documents in the Downloads section entitled
>"Starting a film society" and "Screening films on DVD". These documents
>outline some of the issues involved in screening films as a film club
>and also touch on some of the costs involved in screening from DVD. We
>are in the process of updating some of the licensing information on the
>website, so I have included more up-to-date information below.
>
>Basically the films on DVD for sale in shops or for rent in X-tra
>Vision or Chartbusters are only licensed for home entertainment – once
>you want to show a film outside of the home you need a different type
>of licence and to obtain this licence you must pay the
>distributor/rights holder for the film a hire fee (also known as a
>screening fee). This is the case whether you are charging an admission
>price for the screenings or not.
>
>One of the functions of access>CINEMA is to act as an intermediary
>between film clubs and the distributors of films so that films clubs
>don’t have to worry about trying to figure out which distributor they
>need to contact for each film they want to screen. access>CINEMA acts
>as one centralised point of contact for the venue/film club and the
>distributor. In addition
>access>CINEMA provides programming advice on available films to its members.
>
>So access>CINEMA works directly with film distributors and also with
>companies who act on behalf of a number of film producers/studios.
>The DVD licences access>CINEMA currently acquires for its members are
>known as single title licenses which means you acquire a licence on a
>film title-by-title basis.
>
>Depending on a film club’s screening scenario, the licence
>access>CINEMA secures will either be a non-theatrical or a theatrical
>DVD licence. To secure either type of licence you need to pay a film
>hire fee. This hire fee is the fee you pay to the rights holder of the
>film to get permission to legally show the film.
>
>A non-theatrical DVD licence is charged on a flat fee basis, with a
>hire fee cost of typically between €100 and €150 per screcreening (+
>VAT @ 23%). However this type of licence has certain restrictions
>associated with it, primarily around the fact that the screenings can
>only be open to the film society members (i.e. cannot not open to the
>general public) and no monies can be collected at each screening.
>Also with the non-theatrical licence, the film club can only promote
>screenings internally to its members and cannot provide information
>about the film screenings on any medium outside the screening venue or
>on any website or social media that is accessible by the general
>public.
>
>A theatrical DVD licence allows the film club to charge a ticket
>admission fee on the door and also promote the screenings outside of
>the screening venue and on websites and social media like Facebook. The
>hire fee associated with this type of licence is normally calculated as
>a percentage of the box office collected on each screening night. If
>the box office collected is very low, there is usually a minimum charge
>that will apply called a minimum guarantee. Again VAT @ 23% is
>applicable on the hire fee.
>
>Please note that the film hire licence fees for DVD screenings are not
>set by access>CINEMA but by the distributors/rights holders and
>access>CINEMA does not mark up these fees. As
>part of our service however, we do negotiate a discount scheme with the
>majority of distributors so that the more bookings
>access>CINEMA submits for a particular film on
>behalf of a number of venues within a certain period of time, the
>cheaper the hire fee can become per screening for each venue. So that
>can help in reducing screening costs for organisations.
>
>access>CINEMA does charge a small booking fee
>per film to cover administration costs, and that amount is primarily
>determined by whether your organisation receives any public funding or
>not.
>
>access>CINEMA currently books films to screen
>from DVD for organisations which are run primarily as films societies,
>clubs or community cinemas. According to film society definition,
>screenings operated on a film society (or film
>club) subscription basis must meet the following criteria:
> * The film club must incorporate some sort of membership fee for
>members – i.e. There should be some sort of fee asssociated with
>screenings (not free),
> * Film club screenings must be held on a regular basis, i.e .
>Normally at least once a month or a minimum of 12 screenings per year.
> * Film club screenings should be open to over 18s only, to allow
>the organisation to screen any films that have not been classified in
>Ireland by the Irish Film Classification Office.
> * Film clubs must be not for profit.
> * The remit of access>CINEMA is cultural so we are supporting the
>screening of films that are the alternative to the commercial titles
>already being shown in cinemas. Film clubs must not be in competition
>with their local cinemas or indeed with any existing film clubs.
>
>If an organisation does not want to become an
>access>CINEMA member, then for DVD screenings we
>would generally direct you either towards an organisation called MPLC
>(<http://www.mplc.ie/>http://www.mplc.ie/) or another organisation in
>Dublin called GFD (<http://www.gfd.ie/>http://www.gfd.ie ).
>
>The other thing we normally flag with new potential members is to
>consider the type of films you want to screen and the availability of
>titles. access>CINEMA's remit is cultural so we generally source
>cultural or world cinema titles. If you look at the screenings section
>on our website, you will get a good idea of the range of films that our
>members screen.
>
>However it really is about giving local audiences choices, so a film
>club's programme may not necessarily be made up of all "arthouse"
>titles, but rather a more diverse programme of films that cannot be
>seen at the local cinema.
>So that may be classic films, Irish films, documentaries, independent
>English language films - all alongside foreign language films.
>
>Please be aware that not all of the films that are available to buy on
>DVD in shops/Amazon or to rent in X-tra Vision etc for home screenings
>will be made available for hire by distributors to screen outside of
>the home environment (which is essentially what you are doing). So you
>just need to keep in mind what type of films you want to screen and if
>in general these are available to hire through distributors. Older
>films in particular can sometimes be problematic in terms of DVD
>licensing.
>
>You also need to consider that many rights holders are still not keen
>for organisations to use their own copies of films, and insist that
>screenings are only facilitated with the official copy of the DVD that
>they provide - this is to do with issues of quality and fears of
>piracy.
>
>access>CINEMA books and despatches films for its
>members that include film societies, film clubs and arts centres. We
>also provide a larger programming service where we provide film and
>programming advice, film preview opportunities, images, publicity etc
>to help groups with programming and organising their screenings. So we
>would be able to advise you with your film programme selection.
>
>So as a new organisation the first steps you need to be very clear
>about are what the DVD screening scenario will be (i.e. what type of
>licence will be required), what type of films you want to screen and
>also whether you wants a bigger service that just a licence booking
>facility, and of course acquiring the necessary equipment if it is not
>already available.
>
>In terms of funding for equipment, the bad news is that currently there
>is no funding available from national organisations like the Arts
>Council. I would however suggest contacting your local arts officer to
>see if they may be able to provide some assistance or guidance in this
>area. I know for example that when other film clubs in areas like
>Rathmines and Ranelagh were being first set up, Dublin City Arts Office
>provided some assistance to them.
>
>To avail of our services, you must become a member of access>CINEMA. We
>require that potential new members attend an information meeting where
>we go through the issues surrounding setting up a film club/society in
>detail. A member of a potential new organisation must attend this
>meeting if they want to be in a position to make film bookings through
>access>CINEMA later on in the future. We are very strict on this.
>
>We only hold these meetings a couple of times a year because we don't
>have the resources to hold them any more frequently than this. We
>generally hold one meeting in Winter and another in Summer.
>
>Unfortunately our winter session was before Christmas, but I can add
>your details to the list for the next session, if you or your friend
>would be interested in attending?
>
>Currently, new applicants are being placed on a waiting list for
>membership and their application is weighted under a points system
>according to various different factors.
>
>We assess our current membership on an ongoing basis and if an existing
>member stops screening regularly for whatever reason, (these days
>normally economic), then we will explore whether we can facilitate the
>next applicant on the waiting list with the highest number of points.
>As our remit defines that we give priority to supporting regional
>venues, a regional venue will be weighted higher than a Dublin based
>venue.
>
>We also take into consideration the locations of other existing film
>exhibition venues and clubs and give priority to new organisations in
>areas where there is currently no cinema provision of this kind
>available. We also have to consider the proximity of any commercial
>cinemas depending on the type of films you plan to screen - the venues
>we work with cannot be considered to be in competition with other
>cinemas, even mainstream ones.
>
>Within the restrictions of operating a waiting list, access>CINEMA is
>proactively trying to explore other ways to facilitate potential new
>groups where no cultural cinema provision exists. One thing that we can
>generally help with is the organisation of film club test screenings.
>
>We recommend that a proposed new film club organise at least 3 test
>screenings to asses the real feasibility of a film club or the proposed
>film activity in the local area - this would provide an opportunity to
>evaluate if there is an actual audience for the screenings being
>proposed rather than just an indication of interest from people.
>
>In addition, by running test screenings, a new organisation can get a
>better idea practically of what would be involved for them in terms of
>running a film club on a regular basis and being a member of
>access>CINEM – both from the poiint of view of logistics and costs.
>
>I appreciate that this is a lot of information to digest, - the area of
>DVD licensing is quite complex.
>
>So please take some time to consider the details outlined above and if
>you then have additional questions, please don’t hesitate to contact
>us at access>CINEMA again.
>
>Many thanks
>Kind regards
>
>Maeve Cooke
>Director
>
>access>CINEMA
>Unit 3 Merchant's House
>27 - 30 Merchant's Quay
>Dublin 8
>tel: +353 1 679 4420 / fax: +353 1 6794166 see
><http://www.accesscinema.ie>www.accesscinema.ie for February 2015 news
>