Community and educational screening licences for a self-made documentary

Harvested 30 Oct 2026 (skills harvest). Not in INDEX.md before: "community screening", "educational licen" and "tvod" had 0 hits. The festivals, talks and events skills cover appearances, not licensing the film itself.

What practitioners report (read)

• The Film Collaborative, educational distribution (read): typical educational price lists. Passion River sells public performance rights (PPR) at $199-399, or starts at $49-99 without PPR. Collective Eye lists $295 educational DVD with PPR, $295 digital site licence, $125 non-profit/K-12/government with PPR, $250 community screening and $450 campus screening. Collective Eye states community screening licences are "very beneficial to filmmakers" and are non-exclusive, so they sit beside other deals.
• Film Independent, "ten things" (read): about 90% of the educational market is higher education. The other 10% is schools, non-profits, public libraries and government, and they pay less. An hour-long film averages about $250 per copy. Films that are an hour or less, fit a course, and come with a study guide sell best. Older, longer titles and crowded subjects sell worse. Deliverables: caption files, a press kit (synopsis, statement, stills) and the study guide. Q&As at screenings are an extra income line. Self-distribution splits approach 50/50.
• Stephen Follows, synthesis of ~100 self-distribution case studies (Apr 2026, read in part, paywalled): the film "1946" ran 500+ watch parties in 25 countries for $118,000 net virtual-screening revenue, keeping all rights and viewer data. "The Wisdom of Trauma" sold only from its own site (Vimeo), and its list grew from 60k to 900k during the campaign. Theme: hosts and ambassadors drive it. Make the film matter to a group, don't just make it available.
• UK law, Independent Cinema Office (read): "Any screening of a film to a group of people requires licensing, whether they are a paying audience or not." Copyright licensing and premises licensing are separate. Since April 2015, no premises licence is needed if the screening is not-for-profit and between 08:00 and 23:00; charging only to cover costs still counts as not-for-profit. Music in the film needs PPL PRS cover at the venue. Independent films are booked direct from the rights holder. Buying or renting a copy for home use gives no public screening rights.
• UK reference prices (snippets, not read in full): the Cinema For All booking scheme charges £90 per title licence (up from £85). MPLC single-title licences start at £90 + VAT. Cinema For All recommends a commercial single-title licence, which allows public advertising and ticket sales; a non-commercial one allows neither.

How to do it

1. Write one plain licence page: who it is for (history societies, schools, libraries, community halls, Welsh-language groups), what each tier allows (private class use / public free screening / ticketed screening / online watch party), and that home-use purchases are not screening rights.
2. Request form, not a checkout. Name the group, date, venue, audience size, ticketed or not. A person approves each request. A licence certificate (PDF) goes out after approval.
3. Host kit: poster template, press blurb, 2-3 stills, caption files (cy/en/es), a 1-page discussion or study guide, and a running order with timings.
4. Q&A add-on: offer a recorded or live Q&A with the producer, as a separate optional line.
5. Track requests, screenings held and audience counts in the CRM. Ask each host for a headcount and one photo or quote afterwards; that is social proof for the next host.

How we apply it to Cedwyn

Checked live 30 Oct ~11:12Z: - /documentary/ has a personal licence terms checkbox and the £4.99 latest-cut buy. It has no screening/group route. "screening", "school" and "society" appear 0 times on the page. A personal purchase does not let a Llandough or Vale history society show it in a hall, so groups that want it currently have no legal path. - PROPOSAL (the project lead decides; no price set here): a /documentary/screenings/ page (Cedwyn theme, internal links only) with the tiers above and a request form that creates a HubSpot task. Nothing is sold automatically. Any fee is the project lead's decision; the UK reference points above (£90 title licences) are context, not a price change. - The free v0.0.1 cuts can serve as the "preview" a programmer watches before requesting. The licence covers whichever versions the project lead names. - Host kit sources already exist: cy/en/es subtitle tracks, scene stills, the e-books as the study companion ("read the records behind the scenes" -> /ebooks/), and the academy (/learn/) for groups that want depth. Write a 1-page discussion guide from the chronology. Keep public text within the editorial rules: no banned words, never name the project lead, no family holdings. - Music check before any screening: confirm the score/audio is original or generated with screening rights. If so, the host needs no PPL PRS cover for our music; note this in the kit. - Outreach: the contacts/bizdev engines may draft one screening offer per suitable group as HubSpot drafts only, on the project lead's GO; press only on his GO. Start with the Welsh-language and Llandough/Vale/Cardiff local-history groups already in prospects. - Measure: requests per month, screenings held, audience total, e-book/academy clicks with utm_source=screening. - No price changes, nothing sent, zero spend.

Sources

• thefilmcollaborative.org (read; 2017 prices, USD)
• filmindependent.org (read)
• stephenfollows.com (Apr 2026, read in part, paywalled)
• independentcinemaoffice.org.uk and its premises-licensing and film-copyright-licensing pages (read)
• cinemaforall.org.uk (licence types; text extracted in part)
• Cinema For All £90 / MPLC from £90 + VAT: search snippets only, not read

Raw Markdown: documentary-community-educational-screening-licences.md · version and changes: changelog · machine index: agents.json