Queen Elizabeth II – 1926-2022

We are saddened by the passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II, and extend our deepest sympathies to Heritage Crafts’ President King Charles III and the rest of the Royal Family.

Craft Cinema at The Making of Coventry

Deadline: 25 February 2022

We are seeking submissions of short films (under 30 minutes) for the craft cinema at Making Places on 26 March 2022, a one day event as part of The Making of Coventry, a partnership project between Heritage Crafts and Creative Lives, funded by Coventry City Council, and coinciding with Coventry City of Culture.

The Craft Cinema will showcase the best of UK heritage crafts, both historic and practiced today, focusing on both Coventry and the rest of the UK. The theme of the the event is how crafts contribute to local distinctiveness and a sense of place through time.

Categories:

• Films about craft in Coventry and surrounding areas (historic and/or practiced today)
• Films about heritage crafts practised elsewhere in the UK that show how making contributes to local distinctiveness and a sense of place through time

Guidelines

• All genres are welcome.
• Films must be between 2 and 30 minutes long.
• Your film must be your own work, and you should have obtained copyright or relevant permissions for all images and films used in your piece.
• Contributors selected for screening will be notified by Friday 4 March 2022 and will be required to submit a high res file of their film by Monday 14 March.
• In case of selection, the copyright holder automatically authorises Heritage Crafts to screen the film during the Making Places event in Coventry on 26 March and for additional screenings in the UK, as well as short clips to be used for promotional purposes.

Please submit your films (link to films streamed online, or stored on a cloud sever) along with the following information to info@heritagecrafts.org.uk. Please do not attempt to send videos as email attachments.

• Your name
• Your telephone number
• Your email address
• Title of the film
• Synopsis of the film (200 words maximum)
• Names of craftspeople featured (if relevant)
• Statement confirming that you are the copyright holder and/or have obtained copyright or relevant permissions for all images and films used in the piece, and that you authorise Heritage Crafts to screen the film during the Making Places event in Coventry on 26 March and for additional screenings in the UK, as well as short clips to be used for promotional purposes.

Values statement on heritage

Heritage Crafts’ mission is to support and promote crafts as a fundamental part of our living heritage. As part of this mission and our continuous aspiration to improve as an organisation, we would like to make an honest and open statement about what heritage means to us. We don’t mean this as a finished statement, but as a starting point for a discussion.

We believe that the value of our craft heritage comes from the diversity of skills and traditions across all of our communities, wherever they originated and whenever they were brought here. We want everyone to feel included in Heritage Crafts and our work, no matter how long they have called this country home or what their background may be.

Our heritage is what we choose to take with us, from our complex (and at times difficult) past, into a future that we wish to realise. Through dialogue about craft we can learn from many traditions, acknowledge past and present injustice, and strive to create a future that is fairer and more equal. We don’t believe we can do that until we have come to terms with our past, and fully acknowledged the ways in which it continues to affect us today.

We recognise that throughout history British society has been full of inequalities, many of which continue to this day. Sometimes these are expressed as explicit prejudices, but often they are implicit, embedded in the structures of our institutions and public discourses in ways that disadvantage, disenfranchise and alienate people. We applaud efforts to bring to light discrimination and injustices, including those of the past that have implications today, and believe that more needs to be done to reveal and tackle them.

We don’t own the debate about how heritage is defined and we recognise that many people have been (and continue to be) excluded from the debate. Where we can, we want to use our position to give them a voice. We are not afraid to question the society within which we operate, or in turn be questioned and challenged by others, and be prepared to change.