ScreenSkills at Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes Film Festival sees the film world decamp to the south of France for ten days. Among them were members of the ScreenSkills film team, Emma Turner and Naomi Joseph, representing the Film Skills Fund, cementing industry ties and forging new connections.

Co-sponsoring, and being based at, the Screen UK Industry Partners Pavilion was the perfect opportunity for Emma and Naomi to meet producers, directors and writers intending to shoot in the UK and to promote the many benefits ScreenSkills offers their production and the industry via our funded training and development programmes. It allows the team to provide direct responses to any queries and showcase how the investments made support the development of the workforce and the sustainability of the industry.

There were examples of contributing productions playing across the festival including competition titles Bird and Kinds of Kindness; Santosh, from the festival's Un Certain Regard strand, and six titles selected as part of BFI's Great8 showcase.

Among those who they met were representatives from Ffilm Cymru and Melancholia Pictures, Lauren Paul from Lux Machina, producer Danny Page, Scott Benfold from Screen International, Ken Anderson from Wild Child Animation, producer Jordan Pitt and filmmaker Lee Daly ahead of a discussion around diversity within the industry, producer and former ScreenSkills colleague Gareth Ellis-Unwin, members of Hopscotch, Bart Film and Creative Wales and Ciara Barry and Jennifer Armitage from Barry Crerar.

The pair attended a host of industry panels too, where speakers offered in-depth analysis from studios, producers and screen agencies on important topics including the new tax credits and the funding available to those shooting in the UK.

During the Festival, Emma was able to engage with how A.I innovations will intersect with filmmakers, including Microsoft CoPilot and how Virtual Production continues to evolve to meet the needs of the screen sector. This intel is vital to ScreenSkills designing the future skills training, and how it continues to converge with the wider creative industries.