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British Film Institute

Helping the British Film Institute discover and develop new filmmaking talent

The Client


The British Film Institute (BFI) is the lead organisation for film in the UK. Bringing together film distribution, exhibitions, publishing, festivals, archives and libraries.

They use Lottery funds to support film production, distribution, education and audience development.

The Challenge

The British Film Institute needed their website to have a visual impact. Whilst catering to the needs of their community with simple functionality.

As a leading force for UK films, they wanted the homepage of the new site to act as a 'noticeboard' for this community. Signposting users to relevant resources such as funding advice. It was also crucial that their website gave them a way of discovering new talent. As a distributor for Lottery funds in the film industry.

Desktop, Macbook, tablet and iPhone showing different pages from the British Film Institute's website

The Solution

It was important to The British Film Institute that the new website was easy to use and navigate. Our team employed an open source Drupal solution to meet that need. Designing a simple, yet highly intuitive site-wide navigation for users.

We kept the design clean, utilising high-quality photography and simple icons. Creating a website with visual impact, whilst also engaging and encouraging interaction. A powerful search function was also a key aspect of the brief. We integrated an advanced Solr based search. This complex search setup maximised the exposure of site content to visitors. Enabling them to reach the resources they required to support their development.

To help BFI discover new talent we implemented an application portal, 'The Postroom'. Ensuring that it was accessible both from the homepage and the main navigation. The website is now at the forefront of attracting a range of talent within the film industry. Enabling The British Film Institute to reach a wider audience. Achieving its medium- and long-term objectives.

Client Response

“We are fortunate to be working with Axis12 on our new BFI NET.WORK website.

The website allows BFI and its partners to discover and support UK filmmakers of the future. At the heart of this is the Postroom, which allows filmmakers to create profiles and submit a film or script. Film executives can then review and share that work, and contact filmmakers.

Axis12 has supported us throughout the project. For the discovery phase they helped conduct user research sessions with stakeholders across the UK. This lead to an Agile development workflow that allowed us to workshop and prioritise functionality in iterations. This process allowed us to rapidly respond to stakeholder feedback and build a truly user lead product.

The first phase of the project was launched mid June and has been warmly received. We are looking forward to collaborating with Axis12 on the next phase of the project."

- Ronnie Lam, Project Manager

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