FILM + EVENTS : Future Artists 2014 round up + Coming soon 2015

End of Year Review 2014… People often ask what we do – well here is a snap shot of 2014.

We built a theatre, made a feature film, distributed three! and Raised over £10,000 via Kickstarter for an innovative project! read on…

 

 

With only a couple of working days left of 2014, it’s time to tie up a few loose ends and reflect on we’ve achieved over the year. It’s been a good one for Future Artists, with many developments and surprises along the way!

It feels like only last month we were meeting up with the wonderful supporters of our Home of Honest Coffee campaign, which launched way back in February!

This project is what kicked off 2014 for us, and it was (still is) such a positive and exciting venture to be a part of. Our Kickstarter campaign, which successfully reached its funding target in April – we raised £5500 on Kickstarter with match funding from the Royal Society of Arts, not only enabled us to raise the starting capital we needed for the project, but also introduced us to a whole new exciting bunch of creative and innovative people who have had a truly inspiring influence on our work at Future Artists.

For those of you who are new to Future Artists, The Home of Honest Coffee is our design of a fair trade coffee shop that also houses creative space and a pay-per-minute co-working space in the heart of Manchester.

It’s a David and Goliath story as we set to take on the greedy high street chains with our humble little community base, but we’re confident we’ve got the support behind us to see it through and can’t wait to make our impact on the brand-dominated city. We are currently in the process of securing a location for this venture, and with the boring behind-the-scenes planning, meetings and paperwork all set in motion, we’re ready for some exciting developments to start emerging – so watch this space in 2015!

 

 
From friendly artisan coffee shops to corruption and murderous reality television, Future Artists’ very own feature film The Lost Generation has enjoyed some extra attention this year.

 

 

 

 

Produced and directed by Mark Ashmore, The Lost Generation celebrated its release with a well-received gala premiere at the beautiful Plaza Supercinema in Stockport in late 2013. Earlier this year, we were (not so) surprised to discover that the film had found its way on to a number of BitTorrent and streaming websites, resulting in hundreds and thousands of views worldwide! This is pretty exciting for Future Artists from an exposure standpoint, although it’s a slight shame we don’t receive a penny for those half a million downloads!

 

 

 

Or watch legally here!

 

 

Getting our name out there is all part of the business though, and we’ve had another fantastic opportunity to make our mark on Manchester: after a series of competitive pitches, Future Artists have been trusted to take over the £71million building, The Great Northern Warehouse, a huge historical landmark in the centre of Manchester!

Through this we have been able to support start-ups such as Grindsmith Coffee and Beat Street Manchester, who have both been able to find a rewarding base at the central location. We have also enjoyed being housed under the Great Northern roof, under which we have successfully ran a pop-up theatre space, TheGreat Northern Playhouse, which is ending the year with the fantastic sell-out production, A Christmas Carol.

 

 

While this was all being initiated and organised back in the spring, Future Artists also somehow found the time to attend Cannes Film Festival and successfully acquired the UK rights to Everyday Rebellion, a striking documentary that celebrates the influence and creativity of non-violent resistance around the world, so basically everything Future Artists stands for! The film gracefully portrays the power and strength of the people on the street when resistance is not a frenzied attack, but an organised innovative force. Directed by two brothers, Arash and Arman T. Riahi, the film promotes the ideas and established methods of peaceful protest by following a variety of protagonists on their individual missions of revolution and liberation. We are so excited about this film, we want to provide it to the public for free! It’s set to be released in 2015, so here is another project for you to follow us through with next year! Watch the trailer here:

EVERYDAY REBELLION – TRAILER 1 from Everyday Rebellion on Vimeo.

Another film to be released next year is Portal, a Future Artists feature production that will be screened exclusively on Dailymotion as a 6 part web series. We won’t tell you too much just yet, but for now just imagine your wildest fantasies, imagine being anything you wanted to be, at any point in time, in any space, imagine your own portal to escape… But what if the most addictive virtual reality and social media space was banned, your portal to escape closed.

What would YOU do to get your fix…? You only have to wait until February 2015 to find out, so hold tight!

 

Portal was the last project we completed in our previous home at The Sharp Project, Manchester. We had a great time working there and were able to meet and network with some great people, but in August this year the time came for us to fly the nest and break out into new projects such as the Great Northern explained above. We are rapidly expanding as a company, which can be frightening and exciting at the same time! We are still holding on to our original values, however, and continuing to support the independent creatives that we enjoy working with so much.

Included in this is director Faith Millin and the team at Pundersons Gardens, who produced the fantastic award-winning documentaryDrowned City, which we took on for distribution in October. Winner of Best Documentary at the International Film Festival in London,Drowned City is a gripping and intimate portrait of London’s pirate radio scene, which reveals the interesting lives of significant members of the pirate community and uncovers the risks taken and passion devoted in getting their sounds to the people. The film is available to download through iTunes now, and you can see the trailer here

 

 

Finally, in Future Artists tradition, we are rounding off the year with an exhibition of incredible artwork by the talented Clayton Whitter, who has produced a series of photo-realistic drawings of popular cult icons for a collection entitled ‘Damaged Goods’. The exhibition is on show at the Virgin Money Lounge on King Street, Manchester until Jan 10th 2015. We’re excited to be supporting Clayton as he is a valued member of our media collective – you may recognise him from our previous projects such as Portal.

As for 2015, you’ll have to keep it locked to Future Artists Twitter, @futureartists to find out more! And always remember the famous words of Frank Zapper:

“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible”

 

 

Written by Carla Freeman at Future Artists