Spotlight on Community Filmmaking: A report on Community Filmmaking and Cultural Diversity Research

The ‘Community filmmaking and cultural diversity project explores how cultural diversity intersects with community filmmaking. It considers the results of this intersection in terms of representations and identities as well as practices and innovation.
Using a complexity perspective, the research is framed around the five following dimensions: representation and identity, the role of film as media, the tensions in filming practices between arts and commerce, existing knowledge and innovation dynamics and the roles of intermediaries, policy and place. Our aim has been to map the nature of the networks in which community filmmakers are embedded and the role of local and national institutional settings, policy and place.
The lack of cultural diversity is one of the contexts in which this new research has emerged. The low numbers of black, Asian, minority and women filmmakers in mainstream filmmaking is increasingly becoming a highlighted issue on the industry’s agenda.
Creative Skillset's 2012 Employment Census shows that only 5.4% of the Creative Industries workforce is Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME), representing a significant drop (www.creativeskillset.org). In film, excluding freelancers, the figure for BAME is 4.4% and for television it is 7.5%. Looking at film in London, where the vast majority (58%) of this workforce is located, the working Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) population is 28.8%. However, the BAME proportion of the film workforce in London is only 6%.
The study shows that community filmmaking practices lead to innovation in terms of both content and processes and a better representation of the cultural diversity of the UK’s communities and places.