Yonner: Festival Fund

Aim: Hello everyone, I made a film during lockdown, please can you spare me some cash so I can send it to festivals and share it with the world.

• My name's Ben. I'm a London-based poet from Oldham in Greater Manchester. I'm raising money to send this film I made to festivals.

It was December 2020, like a lot of other arts workers I'd been made redundant due to the lockdown, I was really annoyed about it and still reeling from the failure of Corbynism and I was writing a lot of very bitter political poetry as a result.

My friend turned me on to a scheme running out of the Albany arts centre in Deptford, that was linking different kinds of artists to work together with some meagre funding. I made an application and got connected with the film-maker (and my now friend/collaborator) r seventeen. 

We made a mood board of places and images that were important to me, rented a car and drove home. I took him round and told him stories about my life, and we recorded me reading my poems. I'm really proud of what we made.

It's a film about running away from home, about the limbo of unemployment, the grief of the pandemic, the horrible confusion of lockdown and about solidarity between workers.

With this money we will pay entry fees to film/art festivals and any left over will contribute to attending the ones we are accepted for.

Thank you so much if you can help. Call me and we can go for coffee :)

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 9th September 2025 at 10:03pm