Our youth and community initiatives include:

• Film Workshops with Youth Clubs and other groups in Bo'ness
• Primary and Secondary School Screenings
• Free public exhibitions
• Free tickets for carers under the Respitality scheme
• Free tickets offered in partnership with local third sector organisations
• HippFest Young Programmers
• New Found Sound - a unique schools initiative inviting young musicians to create and perform music to accompany silent film
• Community Tours of silent films to schools, hospitals, and care homes
• Higher education talks and tours
• YoungScot reviewers prize

New Found Sound

An initiative that has been with HippFest from the start, run in partnership with YMI and the NLS Moving Image Archive. Young musicians from the Falkirk District schools work with silent film composition mentors and their music tutors to compose and perform new scores for silent shorts selected from Scotland’s national archive. Musicians from the YMI Senior and Junior trad bands accompany a further selection of films with arrangements of traditional tunes.

HippFest Young Programmers

Each year, a group of 16-25 year olds work with HippFest to curate presentations of silent film during our Taste of Silents film. The cohort will gain insights and entryways into the film exhibition sector and lead on developing the themes and structure of their programmed events. This year’s Young Programmers are Alanna Steele, Callum Edwards, Eve Jeffreys, Helen Jockel and Toadie Mckay.