You will work with the project team to shape themes, co-curate films, introduce screenings and moderate discussions. You can also get involved in facilitating workshops, collecting audience data and survey responses and co-hosting post-screening conversations and Q&As.

Working alongside filmmakers, artists and industry professionals, Cinetopia will provide you with mentoring opportunities and help you develop practical skills in event production, curation, audience engagement and film exhibition.

Transmission will be delivered as a four-week, four-event series, with each event exploring a different decade of British youth culture through film, music, discussion and creative participation. Rather than presenting standalone screenings, each event will combine cinema with live experiences that encourage audiences to engage with the themes of the films and with one another.

The programme is envisaged as a flexible event format, with each evening centred around one or more film screenings and accompanied by activities such as filmmaker conversations, live music, DJ sets, panel discussions, workshops and audience participation.

Programmes may take the form of a double bill, a screening followed by live performance, or a film paired with creative activities that continue the conversation beyond the cinema.

Cinetopia is collaborating with Kat Zabecka, a PhD candidate in Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh, on this project. Katja’s research explores the relationship between film experience, identity formation and belonging. The embedded research will help evaluate how participatory film experiences strengthen feelings of belonging and how discussions, workshops and social interaction shape audiences' reflections on identity, memory and Britain's social and cultural history.

We are proposing four themes, representing four decades. We invite Young Programmers to pitch ideas towards these themes, or get involved in coordinating and delivering the eventised screenings and activities.

1980s – Streets, Strikes & Subculture

Themes: Thatcherism, working-class identity, political activism, punk, reggae, ska and racial politics.

Activity: Youth Archive collection, badge and collage-making, collaborative playlists, disposable camera photography, filmmaker conversations (subject to availability), live music, DJ sets and panel discussions.

1990s – Rave, Rebellion & Escape

Themes: Rave culture, dance music, youth spaces before digital life and forms of escape.

Activity: DJ sets, live music, collaborative poster-making, VHS camcorder recordings and discussions exploring how music shaped identity and belonging.

2000s – Chaos, Cool & Crisis

Themes: Online identity, working-class representation and millennial youth culture.

Activity: Digital art workshops inspired by early internet culture, an MSN Messenger dialogue booth, fashion exchanges, collage-making and discussions exploring how technology transformed growing up.

2010s to the Present – Belonging Now

Themes: Identity, mental health, community and activism.

Activity: Collaborative zine-making, anonymous letters to the next generation, discussions around belonging, resilience and collective care, culminating in an exhibition of the completed Youth Archive..

We plan on programming one or two films per event selected in collaboration with the young programmers, based on the four decades 80s-2010s.

The programme will comprise four themed events and six screenings, with some events presented as double bills.

Films being considered:

80s

• Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché (2021)

• My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

• Gregory's Girl (1980)

• Letter to Brezhnev (1985)

• Cass (2008)

• Neds (2010)

• Babylon (1980)

90s

• Beats (2019)

• Trainspotting (1996)

• Beautiful Thing (1996)

• Young Soul Rebels (1991)

• Small Faces (1996)

• Our Ladies (2019)

00s

• Fish Tank (2009)

• Kidulthood (2006)

• Bullet Boy (2004)

• Bradford Riots (2006)

• Purely Belter (2000)

• Sweet Sixteen (2002)

• Dear Frankie (2004)

• Hallam Foe (2006)

2010s

• Rocks (2019)

• Blue Story (2019)

• Aftersun (2022)

• The Outrun (2024)

The project will be managed by Amanda Rogers (Cinetopia) and Kat Zabecka (PhD in Film Studies, University of Edinburgh) who will produce the event series.

Yes. This is a paid opportunity on a fixed rate with approx. 6 events planned between September - October in central Edinburgh.

If you are aged 16-25 and eligibile to work in the UK, you can apply.

No previous programming experience is necessary, support will be provided.

Cinetopia prides itself on inclusivity and accessibility and we want to provide opportunities for young people from diverse backgrounds.

We particularly welcome applications from young people who are currently underrepresented in the arts, including but not limited to those from Black, Asian and ethnically diverse communities, disabled and neurodivergent people, LGBTQ+ communities, working-class or low-income backgrounds, and care-experienced young people.

Click on the Apply Now button at the top of the page to complete our Young Programmers application form.

This will ask you about your interests, ideas, any previous progamming experience (none is required to take part on this programme) and availability.

Applications are open until XXX after which we will be in touch with the successful applicants with details of next steps.

There are a total of XX young programmer places on this project.