About us
Alchemy Film & Arts is based in the Scottish Borders town of Hawick. We work with artists and communities across local, national and international contexts, using film as a way to come together, have conversations and strengthen community.
We deliver the UK’s festival of experimental film and artists’ moving image; an award-winning programme of community filmmaking, skills development and creative learning; and Scotland’s only film-specific residencies programme, supporting the generation of new knowledge through long-form, practice-led research and multidisciplinary partnerships.
We are constantly questioning the broader contexts in which we live and work. Through collaboration and a critically engaged practice that places inclusion, equity and social justice at its centre, we aim to put Hawick on the map as Scotland’s Film Town, and contribute to a fairer creative industry.
Our team takes pride in the care and clarity with which we deliver our work, and in the warmth and hospitality for which we are known. In all that we do, we value openness, experimentation, creativity, solidarity and humour.
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Alchemy staff portrait, 2025, by Sanne Gault
Aims
Alchemy Film & Arts delivers all its work in line with seven strategic aims, each of which is underpinned by three objectives, to maximise our audience development, community engagement and sector support.
Artistic
Champion artistic excellence in the field of experimental film and artists’ moving image across local, national and international contexts.
Produce, platform and promote the highest quality in experimental film and artists’ moving image. Cultivate communities of practice, and generate and share new knowledge, through experimental film and artists‘ moving image. Provide long-term support for site-sensitive, practice-led, lens-based research within the South of Scotland.
Place
Put Hawick on the map as Scotland’s Film Town, and Scotland on the global map as a home for experimental film and artists’ moving image.
Represent Scotland as an international exemplar of best practice. Contribute to the creative and economic regeneration of Hawick, the Scottish Borders and South of Scotland. Enhance the confidence, resilience and social cohesion of local communities through an attention to place, culture and identity.
Engagement
Sustain meaningful participation for audiences, artists, communities and partners.
Widen and deepen audiences’ appreciation for and critical understanding of experimental film and artists’ moving image. Promote and validate experimental film as a tool for skills development, self-expression and critical thinking. Strengthen commitments to evaluating long-term impact of our engagement work on sector, local regeneration and audience development.
Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion
Host and uphold an inclusive and equitable environment for all stakeholders.
Implement EDI Action Plan to support diversity-led team, reflect diverse participant and artist base, and access-led project delivery. Prioritise, through policy and practice, those who have been traditionally marginalised due to racism, disablism, ageism, multiple deprivation, sexism, gender-based violence, rural isolation and anti-queer prejudice. Allocate significant resources towards access and inclusion, and integrate conversations around access into all stages of project delivery.
Environmental Sustainability
Uphold proactive frameworks in response to the climate emergency.
Implement Environmental Sustainability Action Plan to reduce carbon emissions in line with sector and national pathways to Net Zero. Uphold adaptation and mitigation plans informed by and responsive to local and sector climate predictions. Further enhance our commitments to climate-responsive curation and sustainable project design and delivery.
Governance
Ensure effective, transparent and sustainable governance, management and operations.
Prioritise skills retention and acquisition strategy, supporting staff and freelancers through Fair Work principles and CPD. Consolidate values-led practice through accountable structure, policies, protocols and procedures. Deepen commitments to risk management and mitigation frameworks, integrating them into all organisational operations.
Finance
Maintain a secure financial model and business continuity in line with organisational values.
Guarantee comprehensive finance procedures and regular financial monitoring. Implement Ethical Funding Strategy that prioritises varied income streams, including own generation, and fewer but larger grants in line with decision-making framework. Increase organisational reserves by 6%.
Values
We are led by five core values in all that we do.
Ambition
We aim to lead by example, and to be open and generous in sharing our learning and expertise to the benefit of the sector. In our structures of governance, methods of engagement and audience development, and commitments to partnership working and world-leading curation and production, we are proud ambassadors and flag-bearers of Scotland’s cultural sector.
Experimentation
We ‘embrace the strange‘ in all artistic modes of production, prioritising the generation of new knowledge and understanding through creative methods that are innovative, experimental, and found at the peripheries of industrial and commercial production.
Hospitality
We aim to be a beacon of hospitality, ensuring everyone who engages with our work feels hosted, included and cared about – placing access at the centre of our all our activity, from venue hires to catered events and everything in between.
Humour
We acknowledge that quality and ambitious art is often inaccessible, exclusive and self-serious, despite its best intentions. We value humour as an underpinning of empathy, solidarity, leadership and effective outreach. We want to reclaim joy as a key underpinning of cultural participation.
Solidarity
We are a diversity-led organisation whose curation and production standards reflect and articulate our commitments to equitable working conditions, an active consideration for and inclusion of diverse lived experiences, and social justice within, across and beyond our sector.