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Family film afternoons for the local community have been a wonderful way to bring children and families into the Church of the Holy Spirit, Bretton, located in the Peterborough Deanery. With funding from a Gen2 grant helping with the associated costs, including licensing and publicity, it means this project can be continued into the foreseeable future. Revd Helena del Pino, Vicar at Holy Spirit Church, explains how their family film afternoons are going from strength to strength.
“Great things have been happening at Holy Spirit Church in Bretton. In 2023 the Church had a vision for holding family film afternoons for their local community. Going to the cinema is too expensive for many families already struggling with the increased costs of living. The problem was, the Church could only afford the CCLI film license under whose terms the title of the film couldn’t be publicised. Mystery film screenings, unsurprisingly, were not very successful!
However, in 2024 an opportunity arose to partner with Peterborough’s Gateway Film Festival who had British Film Institute funding to work with local groups to create community cinema in the city. With Gateway’s backing the full screening licenses could be bought and advertising costs covered. Free popcorn and snacks were provided and Gateway shared their knowledge of publicity and marketing as well as advising on film choices. The first couple of screenings were pretty chaotic but gradually our visitors settled into a new environment, helped by our hugely dedicated team who are committed to making the church a warm and welcoming place to be.
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Very quickly we had full house audiences, but we were concerned that Gateway’s funding support would stop at the end of the year. At a Deanery Chapter meeting I spoke with Chad from the Gen 2 team about the possibility of applying for funding from their grants scheme. We were encouraged to apply and then delighted to be awarded generous grant funding that will ensure we can continue with this project for the foreseeable future.
At Christmas we decided to offer a special children’s event which included scripture and prayer and publicised this using the same style as our family film screenings. This was a new venture, and we really didn’t know if anyone would come, but 50 people arrived and enjoyed refreshments afterwards.
We continue to step out in faith to bring children and families into the church and are creating new partnerships with other community and voluntary organisations through the films. Oh, and we have had to seek other sources of funding to buy more chairs!”
Find out more about the family film afternoons at the Holy Spirit Church, Bretton here