This brand new course offers you sessions delivered directly from artist-filmmaker Steven Eastwood, filmmaker Chloe White and the Stims Collective team. It is aimed at film professionals or those already within the industry, to gain skills and knowledge for the creation and delivery of co-creation and collaborative projects, and insight into how to create, programme and finance inclusive film projects.

Course Description

Session 1:

Monday, March 16th, 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

DOCUMENTARY AND DISABILITY

With Steven Eastwood

This introductory session explores changes in nonfiction film practices in the context of the disability rights movement, surveying disability documentary film activism and advocacy through case study films such as Crip Camp, Yes, We Fuck!, Patrice the Movie, Is There Anybody Out There?, Unrest, Gallivant, and others, looking at disability film festivals such as Oska Bright, and the work of FWD-Doc.

 

Sessions 2 + 3:

Saturday 21st March 2026

10:30 AM - 12:30 PM: FUNDING PROJECTS THAT USE PROGRESSIVE PRODUCTION MODELS

With Steven Eastwood

In this session, we will go over in detail how innovative and inclusive projects often involve bringing together very different funding, for example, from research councils, arts funders, equity finance, through crowd sourcing, or via in-kind support. How can the expectations of each of these sources be aligned? The seminar will look at forming SPVs (special purpose vehicles), embracing the IP complexity that inevitably and necessarily arises from co-creation projects, and how the rights of artists and contributors can be better defined and enshrined in contracts, ownership models, roles and sign-off mechanisms. In small groups you will discuss potential funding and ownership structures.

1:30 PM - 3:30 PM: MAKING ACCESSIBLE AND INCLUSIVE PRODUCTIONS

With Steven Eastwood & Sam Chown-Ahern

Using The Stimming Pool (2024) as a case study film, this week will describe the things that can be put in place to ensure that a production has considered and provided support for the many different needs and requirements of collaborators, contributors and crew. This will involve the role of specialist advisors, disability riders, decision-making processes, how to draft accessible call sheets, veto rights, consent mechanisms and more, and how shared authorship requires inclusion across all aspects of production, post-production and exhibition. There will be a break-out activity where you workshop how your potential subjects might become collaborators/co-authors.

 

Session 4

Monday 23rd March 2026, 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

AM PARTICIPATORY / CO-CREATION METHODS

With Steven Eastwood

Using The Stimming Pool (2024) as a case study film, the session will provide an overview of how film production can adopt shared authorship structures, examining both the challenges and insights of such an approach. The session will reference the innovative work of the Project Art Works collective and draw upon the ground-breaking MIT publication Collective Wisdom. We will look at other films that work from a participatory method, including Holloway (2024) and The Work (2017). There will be a break-out activity where participants are encouraged to explore and troubleshoot potential co-creation projects of their own.

 

-Mid-course Easter Break-

 

Session 5:

Monday 13th April 2026, 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

FIXING FILM ENVIRONMENTS

Led by STIMS COLLECTIVE: Georgia Bradburn, Sam Chown-Ahern, Lillian Crawford

The sessions will explore how inclusive and co-created film productions can partner with arts organisations and exhibitors to run relaxed screenings, and will also consider how funders could be more accessible.

 

Session 6 & 7:

Saturday 18th April

10:30 AM - 12:30 PM: HOW TO MAKE SURE THAT FILMS ARE IMPACTFUL  

With Steven Eastwood

The concluding session in the series explores how to make sure that documentaries are impactful following primary release via festivals, cinemas and streaming platforms. This will involve exploring social media strategies, running influencer events, hosting activities with community and charitable partners to fully understand and harness the impact potential of a film. We will also discuss how parallel initiatives, such as expanded/gallery exhibitions, toolkits, and publications, can diversify and maximise impact. This will include case study projects such as STIM CINEMA (the parallel artwork to The Stimming Pool) and The Interval and the Instant (the parallel artwork to Eastwood’s documentary ISLAND)

1:30 PM - 3:30 PM: THE FORM OF RADICAL NONFICTION / THE AUTISTIC CAMERA

With Georgia Bradburn & Steven Eastwood

How can the form a film adopts be more reflective of its content? The session will explore a number of films that have used distinct concepts, aesthetics and structures to more accurately represent subjects, communities and worlds, for example in the work of the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab, and in ground-breaking fact-fiction hybrids such as The Arbor (Barnard), and Dahomey (Diop). The session will then focus on the concept of the ‘autistic camera’ and how it was used in the making of The Stimming Pool.