Bologna Innovation Lab 2025
From 21st to 25th June 2025
Join this year Bologna’s lab to meet international professionals from across the film value chain. It will be the opportunity to share field experiences, broaden your perspectives and opportunities and discover new approaches to developing your activities.
In 2025, Europa Cinemas and Cineteca di Bologna are partnering for the nineteenth consecutive year and invite you to be part of the Audience Development & Innovation Lab entitled ‘Rethinking Cinema in Changing Times: From Local Engagement to Global Politics, Sustainability and AI’, from Saturday 21 to Wednesday 25 June 2025.
This edition will be led once again by Madeleine Probst (Head of Film, Watershed, Britol, United Kingdom) and Mustafa El Mesaoudi (Managing Director, Cinema & Rex Filmtheater, Wuppertal, Germany), who will be joined this year by Miranda van Gelder (Head of Program & Education, Hoogt on Tour, Utrecht, Netherlands).
Case studies, small-group discussions and panels will help professionals and exhibitors to develop concrete solutions to specific challenges, while offering plenty of opportunities to share and present their ideas. This lab is a place for exchange, where participants can discuss their obstacles and difficulties, and spend time with their peers to reflect on their own methods and share expertise.
Topics will be informed by the issues you raise in your application but will broadly cover the following areas:
- Designing more accessible, inclusive and dynamic social spaces
- Dealing with politics; navigating whether and how to present (or not present) certain films/events
- Creating events that bring a return on investment
- Sharing practical approaches to the environmental crisis
- Curation and the (re)discovery of cinema’s past
- Successfully supporting smaller films in exhibition and distribution
- The use of AI; practical opportunities and ethical challenges for film exhibitors
- Developing work cultures that centre wellbeing and inclusion
- People management, mentoring and skills development
PROGRAM
The Lab programme is available here.
LIVE STREAMING ON YOUTUBE
Follow live the Bologna Lab! In order to satisfy the great interest in the Lab and allow all the European exhibitors and professionals not present in Bologna to follow the main sessions and the case studies, we are proposing a live-stream of the lab from Sunday 22 to Tuesday 24 June on our Youtube channel.
If you need more information, please do not hesitate to contact:
Fatima Djoumer, CEO
Tel. +33 1 42 51 53 70, e-mail: fdjoumer(at)europa-cinemas.org
Mathilde Narros, Project Coordinator – Italy & Malta
Tel. +33 1 42 71 83 64, e-mail: mnarros(at)europa-cinemas.org
Noémie Levadoux, Project Coordinator – Germany, Austria & Liechtenstein
Tel. +33 (0)1 42 71 83 72, e-mail: nlevadoux(at)europa-cinemas.org
Céleste Franchomme Quenton, Project Coordinator – Média
Tel. +33 (0)1 42 71 83 31, e-mail: cfranchomme(at)europa-cinemas.org