Ellie Ragdale
Community Impact Officer
ellie@cinemaforall.org.uk
01142210314
I have been so fortunate to encounter many wonderful examples of community cinema, from childhood to present day, as well as live out some of my wildest immersive screening ideas through Handmade Cinema and Girl Gang. Really hard to choose an all-time favourite screening to run, but Girl Gang Sheffield’s immersive screening of The Punk Singer stands out. Screening a documentary about Kathleen Hanna, one of my teenage idols, with an accompanying day of riot grrrl inspired, empowering workshops and followed by a female punk gig was an absolute dream bought to life!
Ellie joined the Cinema For All team as Community Impact Officer in June 2018. As the Founder and Creative Director of the award winning Handmade Cinema, Ellie has produced immersive and interactive screening experiences for families and communities across Sheffield and beyond. She is also a co-Founder and Producer for Girl Gang Sheffield and Manchester, two collectives of female artists, activists and party instigators that produce creative events and projects that inspire and promote collaboration, confidence and community. In 2016, she was awarded Outstanding Contribution by an Individual at the Film Society of the Year Awards for her work in community cinema with Girl Gang and Handmade Cinema. Ellie is responsible for a lot of the outreach work that we do, and works directly with marginalised communities, visiting them at their venues and assisting them in setting up their own community cinemas with coaching programmes such as Launchpad HotHouse and Next Gen. Ellie also works with exisitng community cinemas, focusing on bringing groups from a region in the UK together to share ideas, skills swap and learn from one another, with On the Ground.