Education, Training and
Work Experience

Portobello Film Festival offers free training and work experience in Event Management for unemployed people based around the production of the August Festival and the year round Community and weekly free screenings.

All aspects of Event Management are covered from basic office skills and IT, to PR/Marketing, fundraising, programming, projection and front of house and dealing with the public, sponsors and film makers.

Festival pre-production starts as early as January and begins in earnest in June. Weekly, one off and community shows take place throughout the year. Previous trainees have got full time work in both the media industry and the world at large. It is an enjoyable, motivating experience working on the Portobello Film Festival with plenty of scope for initiative. Festival experience always looks good on a CV and we are happy to provide references.

The Event Management Training Programme has been supported since 2000 by Royal Borough Of Kensington & Chelsea and local SRB's (Fighting Unemployment in North Kensington and Golbourne United) and Campden Charities. The Festival's activities are centred around North Kensington - the Golborne ward there is one of the 10% most deprived wards in UK with higher than average crime and poverty rates - rather than the more well off Notting Hill and south Portobello Road.





The Course itself is flexible. Trainees are encouraged from the outset to work in areas that interest or stimulate them . . . previous participants have gone on to programme whole strands of the August Festival, made films for or about the Festival, been responsible for local and national press, written articles for the website, and booked famous names for personal appearances, as well as more mundane tasks like photocopying, answering the phone and addressing envelopes. It's a practical training at the cutting edge of one of the most glamorous and exciting contemporary multimedia projects but grounded in the reality of successfully delivering a high profile, high quality event.

During the Festival, and at some of the year round shows, movie and media stars and industry professionals give seminars and Q&A's on all aspects of working in the industry from both creative and business aspects. These talks are open to trainees and public alike, and are free. Past presentations have included Chris Cunningham, Apple Final Cut Pro Editing Systems, Franc Roddam, Mike Figgis, music video commissioner John Hassay, Metrodome distributors, Wall Of Sound record label, Zentropa, Jenny Runacre, Anita Pallenberg, Don Letts and John Malkovich.

If you're interested in getting involved phone JB or Leona on 020 8960 0996 or email us at pff@btopenworld.com . Our offices are at Unit 11, ACAVA, 54 Blechynden Street, Lonson W10 6RJ. . .just by Latimer Road tube station.



Community Activities

The greatest pleasure of working in the Portobello/Ladbroke Grove area is its’ colourful and diverse community, with a multicultural history ranging back from the Empire Windrush and large Spanish and Moroccan immigrations and the 50s race riots through the swinging sixties and the punky seventies to the acid house eighties to the desperately trendy nineties. The area has provided cultural asylum for those fleeing the standardization of culture and seeking something new. It is a cultural front line and the Carnival and the market, and now the Film Festival, celebrate this artistic community.

The most popular event of the Festival is the weekend in North Kensington’s Emslie Horniman’s Park where we screen non stop family, comic book, rock and roll and comedy feature films on a 20 ft Megascreen. The Megascreen can show pictures outside in daylight and, along with Carnival’s Steel Band competition here, it is a highlight of the year for the local community. The “newcomers” to Portobello Road have The Electric Cinema, and the long time locals have the Portobello Film Festival Family Fun weekend at Emslie with stalls, food and even a funfair. Big hits over the years have include The Incredibles, Monsters Inc, Shrek 1 & 2, Spiderman 1 & 2, X-Men 1 & 2, all three Matrix movies, O Brother Where Art Thou, Black Hawk Down, the Sex Pistols and Clash movies, Elvis-That’s The Way It Is, Harry Potter, Lord Of The Rings and Troy.





We have shown seasons of family films at The Venture Centre, Wornington Road, W10 and co produced a Media Festival at K & C College, Wornington Road. We have helped present the Kilburn Film Festival and coached excluded kids in filmmaking at The Granville Centre, NW6. We have screened films for Senior Citizens at the Colville Health Centre, W11, and been a free cinema resource at The Inn On The Green, W10, and The Paradise, W10. We programmed the annual free Tavistock Festival in Tavistock Square, W10, and ran screenings with  ACAVA at the Arts Unwrapped Studio Open Day at Belechynden Street, W10. We have our own portable cinema system with projector, sound system and screen.

The Portobello Film Festival does not charge entry to any of its’ shows.

Our weekly Video Cafes have moved from The Venture Centre to the Beat Bar ­ later Mau Maus -, W11, via Woodys, Westbourne Park, Uncle’s, Portobello Road, and on to Westbourne Studios, Acklam Rd W10, and The Inn On The Green.

We present work by local community and filmmaking groups like Rice N Peas, Black Eye, Connections Hammersmith and the Notting Dale Technology Centre. We premiered The Real Notting Hill from the Portobello Project, featuring kids from the Pupil Referral Unit that was screened on Channel 4. And we bring in work from abroad from places like Iran, Ireland and Jamaica. Julian Marley has been a patron since 2000 when we showed the Marley Family’s One Love film in Emslie Horniman’s Park.





Outreach shows have taken place at The Clinic, Soho, and Ali Cats, Brighton, the Glastonbury Festival, the Macau Film Festival in China, the Marburg Open Eyes Festival in Germany, Lyons Art Festival, and at the Cannes Film Festival where Kensington & Chelsea Community Education sponsored a stall for us in the British Pavilion. . . bringing a flavour of urban cutting edge West London culture to the rest of the world.