Artist Film Festival at nodoCCS

Further reading about the collective is available on the nodoCCS website: nodoccs.com/quienes-somos.

The BF Artist Film Festival has developed a reputation as a critical platform for artists working with moving image, offering screening opportunities to early and mid-career practitioners across the UK and internationally. Rather than positioning itself as a conventional industry event, the festival functions as a curatorial meeting point where short films, video works, animations, documentaries, essays and collage are given room to be watched and discussed on their own terms.

Partnerships with other festival organisations extend that reach beyond the core programme. One such collaboration took the festival to Caracas, Venezuela, where it worked with an experimental collective there to contribute to the fourth edition of a video festival held over four days in November 2018. Such exchanges are central to the festival's identity, connecting artists and audiences in spaces where screening culture may be less established but equally vibrant.

The collective involved was founded in 2015 by two Venezuelan artists, and it operates as an experimental hub rather than a mainstream cinema. Its base in Caracas gave the visiting festival team and participating artists a chance to encounter local moving-image practice directly, to share programmes, and to build longer-term relationships with communities working in video and contemporary media.

Across its year-round activity, the festival's own programme includes curated thematic strands, screenings, talks, laboratory sessions and collaborative projects, presented in airy, gallery-like settings with generous spacing and an editorial sensibility. Restriction-free submissions and open calls have allowed a wide range of new voices to enter, and several alumni have continued on to national and international opportunities in the arts and culture sectors.

The archive of past programmes and events remains available for visitors who want to understand the festival's development over time. Each partnership, screening set and lab session adds to a broader picture of a community built around shared attention: artists, audiences, curators and venues working together so that experimental moving image can be seen widely, discussed openly and supported with care.