The core mission of Raising Films is to champion and support parents and carers in the UK screen industries.
The film and TV industry must take action to serve its parent members better, and to increase their number. We call on the film industry to aspire to the best possible practice, to make it possible for all our voices to be heard.
We work with industry partners and the film and television community to ensure solutions are enacted, by lobbying, providing information, educating and signposting. Raising Films works with the Film & Television Charity to provide a Family Support Fund; we partner with organisations in line with our aims to amplify our mission.
We provide a communal voice for people working in the film and television industry though surveys, reports, lobbying and interventions. Our survey Making It Possible: Voices of Parents and Carers in the UK Film and Television Industry was the first-ever survey to look at the impact of parenting and caring labour for workers across the UK’s film and television sector. It reveals very clear barriers for parents and carers who work within the sector, which do not only affect women, but continue to affect them disproportionately.
Women continue to struggle for representation across the film industry globally. One social barrier particularly affects women, although it applies to everyone: Family vs. Film.
At Raising Films we believe conversations make change happen, and we want things to change. We are losing too much talent to the choice many filmmakers are forced to make, between being a parent and making films. We don’t believe this choice is necessary, but rather a product of social and economic conditions, and we want to start a conversation about how change can be made for filmmakers who want to have a family and continue their careers.
This is about development, sustainability and diversity. Raising Films aims to address one of the issues that prevents many female filmmakers from pursuing their careers, to enable filmmakers with families to keep working and feel supported during demanding times in their personal lives, and to challenge at a structural level the demands the film industry makes of all of us.
Raising Films aims to provide information, education and solutions and our work focuses on:
We put these ambitions into action by working with industry partners and the film and television community and lobby to to ensure these and other solutions are enacted.
