The BMC Women in Adventure Filmmaking Workshop is an engaging session designed for budding filmmakers to sharpen their skills, explore new techniques, and build valuable connections. Whether you're just starting out or looking to refine your craft, this workshop is for you.

During the two hour session, you'll rotate through three focused sessions led by expert filmmakers, each lasting 25 minutes. Bring your own film ideas to develop and discuss with our mentors and there will be time for networking at the end of the session.

This event takes place after the 2026 Women in Adventure Winners have been crowned and shown earlier in the day at Kendal Mountain Festival.

Where and when

Time and Date: Friday 20th November at 12pm - 2pm

Location: The Barrel House, Kendal

Event discount

BMC members get 10% off tickets. Email emma@thebmc.co.uk for the discount code (or check your BMC August Members newsletter)

Meet the facilitators

About Menna

Menna Wakeford is a multi award-winning documentary editor with over a decade of experience in sports and adventure film production. She is known for crafting authentic, character-driven stories. A passionate advocate for accessibility and inclusive filmmaking, she has served on the Kendal Mountain Festival jury, won at multiple international film festivals including Banff and is a member of the honorary society of British Film and Television Editors.

Workshop: Planning for Post Production

Plan your project with the final edit in mind - from shooting with purpose, crafting compelling narratives in the edit, building immersive soundscapes and making your films more accessible to wider audiences - we’ll explore how to craft authentic stories to captivate your audience.

About Aisha

Aisha Weinhold is the Executive Director of 5Point Film Festival, an outdoor adventure film organization based in Carbondale, Colorado, and the founder of No Man’s Land Film Festival, the first all-women’s adventure film festival.

Workshop: Beyond the Beat Sheet: Rethinking the Trauma-to-Triumph Arc in Women's Adventure Film

There's a well-worn pattern that has become especially prevalent in adventure films featuring women and marginalised communities: the character's life feels incomplete, they face a challenge that knocks them to their knees (a diagnosis, an injury, something tied to her gender), they discover an adventure sport, and now they're whole again — because of rock climbing, or skiing, or whatever the sport happens to be. The issue isn't that this arc exists — it's that it has become nearly the only arc greenlit for marginalized communities in this space. When a genre leans on one structure that heavily, it does two things: it makes tragedy a prerequisite for a character's story being "worth telling," and it makes the sport itself do narrative work it can't actually do — skiing doesn't resolve grief, it's just filmed as though it does. The result reduces the character to their tragedy and decenters their humanity, which was likely the whole point of the film to begin with.

This session is about what to do instead: how to tell stories about marginalization and adventure that don't rely on this shorthand.

Topics covered:

• Tailoring the focus of marginalization with impact in mind
• How to tell a niche story that delivers a universal message
• What festivals are actually accepting, and what funders are actually looking for
• Integrating DEI concepts in a way that feels progressive, not performative
• Why humor matters — and why so many of these films skip it
• Ideal film lengths

More workshop facilitators to be announced soon.