Other Ways of Seeing - Pitch to Cinema Rediscovered

Cinema Rediscovered is dedicated to showing new restorations and rediscoveries from around the world back on the big screen. The festival also presents themed strands, small-scale retrospectives and film-on-film rarities, including films with connections to Bristol, a UNESCO City of Film.

Beyond the films, there are talks, workshops, exhibitions, live events, free drop-ins, cinema walks and a quiz. Find out more about the festival and take a look at previous editions. You can also find lists of titles screened at Cinema Rediscovered via our Letterboxd HQ.

Our co-curators to date have come from varied backgrounds rather than traditional film industry roles, many drawing on grassroots and community experience. Some presented a specific film or season and several worked in collaboration with others. Past projects range from a Jeff Barnaby retrospective and an 85th anniversary screening of The Wizard of Oz to a focus on Stephanie Rothman and an eventised screening of Josie and the Pussycats.

Explore for yourself for some inspiration: 

• 2024 Other Ways of Seeing Co-curators
• 2025 Other Ways of Seeing Co-curators
• 2026 Other Ways of Seeing Co-curators

Remember, however, that the whole point of Other Ways of Seeing is to make space for new voices, so treat these examples as inspiration rather than a template. We welcome pitches for any activity that might help audiences see film differently, for example:

• A single film or short season: a restoration, a rarely shown film on 35mm, a focus on a lesser-known filmmaker, or a personal favourite that you think should be seen on the big screen in 2027
• An eventised screening: a film with something added around it, such as a live element, a themed experience, a quiz, a sing-along or dressing up
• A spotlight on an overlooked talent: a filmmaker, performer, genre or movement you think has been underseen or undervalued
• A talk, introduction or conversation: a way of giving a film fresh context or bringing new voices into the room
• A participatory or community-led event: a workshop, walk, pop-up or free drop-in that takes cinema beyond the screen

You don't need programming experience, a fully formed idea or a film industry background. Tell us what you'd love to see on a cinema screen and why it matters to you and the audience you have in mind, and we'll help you shape the rest.

If your idea doesn't fit any of these, pitch it anyway. Doing your own thing is exactly what we're hoping for.

Research is what separates curation from scheduling. Without it, a programme is a list of titles. With it, the programme makes an argument and tells audiences something they couldn't have found themselves.

You don't need to be an academic or have a film industry background. What matters is that you've done the thinking and can explain it. We want to know why this idea matters to you, why it matters in 2027, and why audiences will be glad they came. If your research turns up something surprising, such as a forgotten history or an unexpected link, put it at the centre of your pitch.

Good research helps you answer questions such as:

• Why this film, filmmaker or theme? What makes it worth an audience's time, and what do they gain from seeing it on a cinema screen rather than at home?
• Why now? Why is this relevant in 2027? A pitch is much stronger when it connects to something that makes the work matter today. That could be an anniversary, a new restoration, a recent reappraisal, a conversation in culture or society, or a gap in who gets remembered. Being old is not a reason in itself. The strongest pitches show how an older film speaks to the present, or how today's questions change how we see it.
• Who is it for? Which audiences would care about this, and how will you reach them? Knowing your audience shapes everything from the format to how you describe the event.
• What's already been done? Check whether the film has recently screened in the UK, whether it has been restored, and how it has been written about.

• Watching widely: seeing films, looking at credits, watching a filmmaker's other work and what was made around it
• Reading and listening: criticism, interviews, archive material and scholarship, but also community voices and personal accounts that official histories may have missed
• Practical checks: whether a print or digital copy exists, who holds the rights, and what condition it is in. Finding this out early shows whether your idea can happen, and a strong idea needs to be deliverable
• Talking to people: archives, festivals, distributors, critics, community groups or people with a personal connection to the work. They often open up angles you wouldn't find alone.

A film restoration is the process of returning a film to a state as close as possible to how it originally looked and sounded, using the best surviving materials. It usually also produces a new set of preservation and exhibition copies, so the film can be shown and kept safe for the future.

Film preservation is about keeping the material safe: correct storage, checking condition, and duplicating film that is deteriorating. Restoration goes further. It makes decisions about how the film should look and sound, then reconstructs that. Sometimes a preservation print or DCP is the only way to see a film.

A remaster generally means a new transfer or clean-up of existing materials, often for home video, with less emphasis on research and documentation. A restoration usually implies going back to the best original elements and following archival principles.

The terms are used loosely in marketing, so it's worth checking what materials were used and who did the work. Knowing the source elements, the lab involved and the restoration notes helps you judge quality, write accurate programme notes, and explain to audiences why a restored version may look different from ones they've seen before. Festivals such as Il Cinema Ritrovato are good at including this information.

Here are some initial pointers.

Festivals

• Europe: Il Cinema Ritrovato (Bologna, late June), Cannes Classics (May), Venice Classics (September), Berlinale Classics (February) and the Lumière Festival (Lyon, October) are the main festivals that premiere restorations. Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (Pordenone, October) is one to watch for silent film. 
• North America: MoMA's To Save and Project (New York, winter) and UCLA's Festival of Preservation (Los Angeles, spring) are strong indicators of what's coming from US archives. The TCM Classic Film Festival (Hollywood, April) often premieres restorations from the studios, and TIFF Cinematheque (Toronto) is worth following for Canadian and international screen heritage work. 
• Asia: The Hong Kong International Film Festival and the Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI) both programme restored classics. The Busan and Tokyo festivals also feature classic strands, and the National Film Archive of Japan runs its own screenings and retrospectives. 
• Middle East and Africa: The Red Sea International Film Festival (Jeddah) runs a Red Sea Classics programme. Carthage Film Days (Tunis), the Marrakech International Film Festival and FESPACO (Ouagadougou) regularly include heritage titles, and FESPACO is especially useful for African restoration work. 

Projects and foundations

• The Film Foundation publishes lists of preserved and restored films. Its World Cinema Project focuses on restoring films from regions with limited preservation resources.
• The African Film Heritage Project, run by The Film Foundation with FEPACI and UNESCO, restores African cinema.
• Film Heritage Foundation (India) works on Indian cinema. It also runs preservation workshops and often presents restorations at major festivals.
• Cinenova (London) is a feminist film and video distributor with a collection of work by women filmmakers, much of it experimental and independent, available to book directly.
• Women's Film Preservation Fund (NYWIFT, New York) funds the preservation of films by and about women, and its list of supported projects is a useful guide to new restorations.
• M+ Restored is a new initiative by M+ which aims to increase the visibility of Hong Kong's rich cinematic heritage by presenting and leading the restoration of feature-length films (such as The Arch, presented at Cinema Rediscovered 2026).

Distributors, sales agents and labels

Keep an eye out for labels, studios, distributors and sales agents announcing new 4K restorations for cinema and physical media. A physical media release however does not mean a film is available theatrically.

Good ones to follow include The Criterion Collection / Janus Films (Criterion's worldwide theatrical arm), StudioCanal, Radiance, Arrow, Kino Lorber, Masters of Cinema / Eureka and the BFI. Cohen Media Group, Milestone, Indie Collect and Arbelos are useful for American and world classics.

It's also worth looking at sales agents' catalogues (for example MK2, Tamasa Distribution and The Coproduction Office), but be mindful that not all their titles will be available for UK bookings through them.

You are not expected to have done this at the point of application. It's something we can help with, but it's good to have done some initial research.

Film rights are a complex area to navigate, so you'll need to put your detective hat on. Rights are split by territory (for example the UK), by medium (theatrical, non-theatrical, TV, home video, streaming) and by time, because licences expire and get renewed. So the question is usually: who has the UK theatrical rights to this title right now?

Note the difference between theatrical licences (in a cinema, playing from formats such as DCP or 35mm) and non-theatrical licences (pop-up spaces playing from digital files or Blu-rays). Some non-theatrical screenings would need to be cleared through Filmbank.

The UK has no copyright register, so you can't look up ownership in one place.

• Whoever distributed it last. They are likely to still be the contact or at least provide a clue. Check the BBFC, Film Distributor’s Association, BFI Collections Search, the film's recent cinema or festival listings, and the credits on any UK physical media release.
• Distributor catalogues. Search Park Circus, BFI Distribution, StudioCanal, Curzon, Arrow, Eureka and Filmbank first, since they hold much of the classic and repertory rights in the UK.
• Industry bodies and colleagues. The Independent Cinema Office is good for booking advice and contacts, and the Film Distributors' Association can help you identify UK distributors. Colleagues at other independent cinemas and your Film Hub are also a good place to ask.
• Restoration credits. The lab or archive named on a restored print, such as Cineteca di Bologna or the Film Foundation's World Cinema Project, will usually tell you who holds the rights, even when they don't hold them themselves.
• World sales agents. If a title has no UK distributor, a world sales agent will usually control the UK rights. Festival websites and catalogues, Cinando (the Marché du Film database) and Unifrance all list agents. Costs are likely to be much higher, however, as sales agents are usually trying to sell films to a territory rather than to a single festival. Thanks to our touring programme, Cinema Rediscovered is in a good position to negotiate lower costs through collective bargaining across multiple cinemas, but this does require buy-in from several cinemas.
• Archives. An archive holding a print doesn't necessarily control the rights, but archivists generally know who does and will point you in the right direction. FIAF's member directory may help you find the right one.
• Filmmakers, producers and estates. They may still hold the rights directly, especially for experimental, artist and independent work. More niche distributors like Cinenova and Arsenal are worth checking too.
• Orphan works. If a rights holder truly can't be found, the UK Intellectual Property Office runs an orphan works licensing scheme. It's slow and requires a documented diligent search, so treat it as a last resort.

Publications

Sight & Sound, Film Comment, Cinema Scope and Cineuropa cover restorations regularly. Screen Daily and Variety report on rights and distribution deals. 

Networks and archives directly

FIAF (the International Federation of Film Archives) provides a route into the archive world. It has a member directory and a journal, and its congress is a good way to meet archivists. Some restorations only become available through the archive itself, or reach distribution late through loan programmes, so it's worth building direct relationships.

UK and Europe

• BFI National Archive (London): the first stop for UK work. Its restorations and BFI Distribution tend to work in tandem.
• Cineteca di Bologna / L'Immagine Ritrovata: prolific, and the lab behind many restorations for other rights holders. The catalogue of restored titles is searchable.
• Cinémathèque française and Institut Lumière: strong on French and classic cinema.
• Eye Filmmuseum (Amsterdam) and the Austrian Film Museum: notable for silent, avant-garde and experimental work.
• Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst (Berlin): the organisers of the Berlinale's Forum and Forum Expanded sections. Strong on experimental, essay and artists' film and on work from outside Europe, with a distribution catalogue you can book from directly.
• Deutsche Kinemathek (Berlin): the national film archive and museum, and the organiser of Berlinale Classics.
• National archives: Filmarchiv Austria, Cinemateca Portuguesa, Filmoteca Española, the Swedish Film Institute, the Hungarian National Film Archive, the Národní filmový archiv (Czech Republic) and the Danish Film Institute all restore and circulate their own heritage titles.

North America 

• US: UCLA Film & Television Archive, Library of Congress, George Eastman Museum, MoMA, Academy Film Archive.
• Canada: Cinémathèque québécoise, TIFF Cinematheque, Library and Archives Canada. 

Latin America 

• Cinemateca Brasileira (São Paulo): one of the largest archives in the region.
• Cineteca Nacional and Filmoteca UNAM (Mexico): key for Mexican and Latin American cinema.
• Fundación Cinemateca Argentina and Cinemateca Uruguaya: important for Southern Cone work.

Asia and Oceania

• National Film Archive of India (NFDC-NFAI): essential if you programme Indian and world cinema.
• National Film Archive of Japan, Korean Film Archive (KOFA), Hong Kong Film Archive, Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI) and China Film Archive: all run active restoration programmes, and several regularly send new restorations to European festivals.
• Thai Film Archive: restores and shows Thai heritage films.
• National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) and Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision (New Zealand): the main archives for Australasian work. 
• Middle East and Africa Cinémathèque de Tanger (Morocco): a leading independent cinematheque for North African and Arab cinema. Metropolis Cinema (Beirut): an independent cinema that promotes Arab film heritage. 
• Cinémathèque Afrique and the African Film Heritage Project (above): useful entry points for sub-Saharan work.

Many smaller and community archives also do remarkable work. FIAF's directory and the festivals above are probably the best way to find them, and the next section covers collections closer to home.

Not every film worth rediscovering has been restored by a major archive. Across the UK there are regional, community, activist and specialist moving image collections that hold local, working-class, artists' and community-made work you won't find on any restoration list. Much of it is non-fiction, and it can be a rich source of stories that mainstream film history overlooked.

A good starting point is Exhibiting the UK's Hidden Moving Image Archives, a resource from the BFI Film Audience Network, researched by Andy Robson in partnership with Film Hub NI. It maps collections that reflect the diversity of the UK and are often less well known.

As with any research, check early what format a collection holds, what condition it is in and whether it can be shown in a cinema. Some material may not be digitised or ready for exhibition, so approach archives well ahead of time.

Regional and national film archives

There are many regional and national film archives across the UK, alongside the BFI National Archive (above). They hold feature films, documentaries, newsreels, amateur and home movies, public information films and regional television. Examples include:

• The Box (Plymouth): the regional archive for the South West of England, covering an area from Gloucestershire to the Isles of Scilly. It holds the Westward Television and TSW collections, plus many amateur and professional donated collections. A natural first call for ideas with a Bristol or South West connection.
• Wessex Film and Sound Archive (Winchester): covers Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes, including local newsreels, amateur footage and films made by local businesses.
• The Media Archive for Central England (MACE): the public screen archive for the East and West Midlands, from the Lincolnshire coast to the Welsh border.
• East Anglian Film Archive, Screen Archive South East and London's Screen Archives: cover East Anglia, the South East of England and Greater London respectively. London's Screen Archives is a network managed by Film London, bringing together collections held by many different organisations.
• North West Film Archive (Manchester), Yorkshire Film Archive and North East Film Archive: the Yorkshire and North East archives share a team and make hundreds of films free to watch online, and work with communities and exhibitors on screenings. 
• National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive, National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales and Northern Ireland Screen's Digital Film Archive: the national collections for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Community, working-class and activist collections

• Amber Film & Photography Collective (Newcastle): has documented the people and landscape of the North East of England since 1968.
• Borders Community Film Archive (Hawick), Pilton Video (via Screen Education Edinburgh), UistFilm (Outer Hebrides) and Vivid Projects (Birmingham): community-rooted collections tied to specific places. Vivid Projects holds the TURC Video and Birmingham Centre for Media Arts archives and oversees titles from the Birmingham Film and Video Workshop.
• London Community Video Archive: videos made by community groups in London between 1969 and 1985, on housing, race, gender, ageing, local activism and sexuality.
• Spirit of Revolt, Reel News, Undercurrents and Platform Films: activist and campaigning video archives. Platform Films also oversees the films of Cinema Action, one of the key post-war UK film collectives.
• Concord Media, Contemporary Films and Leeds Animation Workshop: distributors with collections focused on social change. Contemporary Films includes titles from The Other Cinema, the 1970s radical film distributor, and Leeds Animation Workshop is a women-run cooperative making animated films on social issues.

Collections by and about particular communities

• Pan African Cinema Archive (London): built over thirty years by the curator Dr June Givanni, with around 700 video titles representing UK, African and African diaspora experience.
• Kinolibrary: a footage library that hosts collections from the pioneering Black British filmmakers Don Letts and Menelik Shabazz, and material on the early days of hip hop, rave and punk.
• Chinese Independent Film Archive (CIFA): preserves films and footage from the Chinese independent film movement from the 1990s onwards.
• Black Cultural Archives, British Deaf Association and the Jewish Museum: all hold film collections that document their communities' histories. The British Deaf Association's collection includes material from the 1930s onwards capturing the Deaf community and the use of British Sign Language.

Artists' moving image

• LUX (London): an artist moving image collection of over 6,000 works from the 1920s to the present day, including the legacy of the London Filmmakers' Co-op and London Video Arts. Cinenova (above) is a companion source for feminist work.
• Other collections: the Steve Dwoskin Archive (University of Reading), the Fugitive Archive on Margaret Tait (University of Glasgow), REWIND Artists' Video (University of Dundee) and the British Artists' Film & Video Study Collection.

Broadcast, newsreel and specialist archives 

BBC Rewind, British Pathé, the ITV Archive and STV hold huge amounts of material representing communities across the UK. Screening fees can be high and vary a lot, but they are worth searching. Specialist institutions such as the Imperial War Museum, Wellcome Collection, Barnardo's Archive, the British Red Cross Museum and Archives, Bethlem Museum of the Mind and the Royal Anthropological Institute's RAI Film also hold films, and some are relevant well beyond London.

Libraries and special collections

Some collections don't hold much film but can transform a pitch through research, speakers, introductions and Q&As. Examples include the Feminist Archive South (University of Bristol Special Collections), Glasgow Women's Library, The Women's Library (LSE), the Working Class Movement Library, Marx Memorial Library, MayDay Rooms, Bishopsgate Institute, the Disabled People's Archive, the National Disability Arts Collection, the University of Stirling's collections on Norman McLaren, John Grierson and Lindsay Anderson, and The Other Cinema collection at Goldsmiths.

If your idea is rooted in a particular place, also ask your local council whether it holds films or videos. They may not be digitised, but it can be the start of a partnership. Your regional BFI FAN Film Hub (for Bristol, Film Hub South West) can also help with introductions.