We are interested to hear from people both with and without previous board experience. We can provide mentorship and training for the board position where it’s appropriate.

Our particular priorities for this call out are to find new Board Members who hold knowledge in one or more of the following areas:

• Access and workplace/programme adaptations including;
  • Removing barriers to participation in the Festival;
  • Community development;
  • Young peoples’ programmes and skills development;

• Practising artists, filmmakers, programmers and critics;
• Environmental sustainability in arts and cultural work;
• Marketing, PR, social media; including data analytics or evaluation;
• Strategic development & fundraising including;
  • Working with local or regional authorities;
  • Capital development or building management;

• Legal including;
  • Financial management (in particular for charities);

While the Festival invites applications from across the UK, we are particularly keen to hear from those based in Berwick or Northumberland.

• Ability to analyse, challenge and question constructively;
• Ability to think creatively, strategically and express views;
• Willingness to listen and serve as a ‘critical friend’;
• Ability to bring your own experience into the conversations and also to
  contribute to discussions on subject areas which are outside of your
  immediate knowledge;
• Understanding of, and demonstrable commitment to, equality and diversity.

• Supporting the team to achieve the vision and aims of the organisation,
  evaluating performance against agreed targets and maintaining good
  governance;
• Representing and advocating for BFMAF;
• Contributing to Board discussions, sub committees and ad hoc support;
• Ensuring that BFMAF pursues its aims and objectives as defined in its Artistic
  Vision, Business Plan and Memorandum and Articles;
• Contributing to policies and decision making;
• Ensuring good financial management and timely reporting;
• Ensuring that BFMAF is accountable to its funders;
• Acting in a collegiate manner with mutual respect, integrity, openness and accountability to safeguard and promote the values of BFMAF as a charity at all times.

• Board Members are voluntary and unpaid.
• All reasonable travel expenses will be reimbursed.
• Board members are expected to attend 4 Board Meetings a year and participate in occasional development planning days. It is likely that meeting dates will be a mixture of in person and online.
• Board Members should attend and participate in key BFMAF events so that they can promote the organisation from an informed position.
• Board members will be appointed initially for a 3-year term, with the
  opportunity for re-standing for a further two terms up to a maximum of 9 years.

The deadline for notes of interest is Wednesday 31 May 2023, midday (13:00).

To apply, please email hr@bfmaf.org with ‘Board – Note of Interest’ in the subject line. Please include within the email:

• Up to 500 words outlining your experience and how you meet the attributes and specification listed in this call out, describing why you are interested in being on the BFMAF Board.
• Your contact details and where you are based.
• Attach your CV as a PDF titled in the format ‘FullName_CV’.

We will reply to your email and confirm receipt within 2 working days and will provide a link to an Equal Opportunities Monitoring form to complete.

BFMAF are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from disabled and neuro-divergent people, global majority candidates, those who identify as LGBTQI+, people from low-income backgrounds, women and younger people.

To arrange an informal conversation with Laura Simpson, Board Member and Interim Chair, please email hr@bfmaf.org.

Please also get in touch with us if you have any access needs relating to the application process or potential barriers to your full participation as a board member – we may be able to help.

About the organisation

Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival is a company limited by guarantee, and a registered charity. It has been an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation since 2012 and is also supported by the British Film Institute, North of Tyne Combined Authority, Community Foundation, Northumberland County Council and Berwick-upon-Tweed Town Council.

The Festival currently employs 2 full-time and 2 part-time members of staff. It is supported by around 15 colleagues working freelance and 50 volunteers during the festival itself. It is managed by a board of voluntary directors.

About the Festival

Inspired by its borderlands location, Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival holds pluralist and revisionist ideas of contemporary cinema, its history and curation. Short, medium or feature-length Festival selections can include arthouse, documentary or genre cinema; artists’ moving image and sound; world premieres and freshly restored archival titles; live, installation-based and performative or online artists and filmmakers works. Together, they hold shared and overlapping interests in asking what new cinema might be.

In presenting its Festival, BFMAF strives to understand and work towards optimal production and exhibition conditions for artists and filmmakers’ work within the resources, scales and contexts it has available. In evaluating this, the inclusion of audiences and communities that it is involved with – locally, regionally, nationally and internationally are of utmost consideration. Equally important are the working conditions and well being of its staff, freelance workers and volunteers.

Over the last eighteen years, the Festival’s work has continued year round with professional development programmes for artists and filmmakers, skills development with young people, and projects commissioned in collaboration with local and international partners.