How it started
History
Founded in 2004 by Elliot Grove, the charity was first chaired in 2006 by Neil McCartney and is run by the board of trustees. In 2017, they appointed Lydia Agbobidi as Chair of the IFT.
It previously worked with groups such as the British Independent Film Awards and the Raindance Film Festival in fostering, promoting and celebrating independent film-making in the UK.
The charity's first film-making course was set up in 2010, when it ran an eight-week programme for adults recovering from mental health issues, working jointly with the Raindance film-making organisation and Westminster Mind. In September one of these films – Night Music, a 12-minute animation by Paul Jacques – was selected for inclusion in the Shorts programme of the Raindance Film Festival.
In 2011, the IFT joined with Raindance and Staffordshire University to set up a programme that leads to an MA or MSc in Film by Negotiated Learning. Raindance/IFT was the first outside body to be validated by the university to deliver such a course, having been approved in August 2012 as a franchise partner.
The creation of an online version of the programme, which was launched in October 2012, makes it available to students based anywhere in the world with access to a broadband internet connection. In theory, a student could progress all the way to a master's degree without ever attending a designated physical location or actually meeting any of their tutors. That is, provided that they had handed in work and projects that met the assignment guidelines and postgraduate requirements (and kept up-to-date on fees). The programme is highly flexible and allows the students to choose their own modules, and design and deliver them through self-directed learning with Raindance supplying support, tutorials and access to its wide and varied range of classes.
From Wikipedia’s article on Independent Film Trust, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2