Arts / Charity in ‘precarious’ position launches restorative justice film festival
A RESTORATIVE justice charity finds itself in a “very precarious” financial position as it launches its own mini film festival to raise funds.
Space2Face is an independent charity which brings people who have been affected by a crime or incident together with those responsible to talk and move forward.
Its work was this week praised by the Shetland Community Justice Partnership, which said it “very much values” Space2Face – and that Shetland was “fortunate” to have it.
But it said it was concerned about potentially losing the service due to a lack of core funding.
Space2Face co-founder Clair Aldington admitted the charity was in a “precarious” position.
“Yes, the service could fold at any time if we don’t get more funding in,” she said.
“We get quite small amounts of grant funding. We’re like any other small charity.”
Shetland Community Justice Partnership said Space2Face’s case numbers “don’t always seem significant enough” for national funders, because they are only able to see a small number of people each year.
Aldington agreed, saying it was “a bit of a chicken and egg situation”.
“It’s a tricky one, because we know some funders think when we put in funding bids that our numbers aren’t high enough,” she said.
“But if we had more funding, we would be able to see more people. If we had more money, more people would be able to use the service.”
Space2Face has come up with an innovative and engaging way to raise some funding – a Shetland-first restorative justice mini film festival.
The charity is screening three films this weekend related to restorative justice, starting with The Meeting at Mareel tonight.
That powerful Irish feature focuses on Ailbhe Griffith, who sat down face-to-face with the man who sexually assaulted her nine years earlier.
Griffith plays herself in the film, and will conduct an online Q&A with attendees after the screening tonight.
Aldington said they were partnering with The Compass Centre and Shetland Women’s Aid for tonight and tomorrow’s (Saturday) screenings, with counsellors on hand to speak afterwards to anyone affected by the films and their themes.
That second film is Encounter with My Aggressor, focusing on a woman in France who is raped and finds herself in dialogue with her attacker some 33 years on.
Finally Maixabel rounds off the festival, a drama about a woman who sits down in prison with an assassin who killed her husband during terrorist attacks related to the Spanish Basque conflict.
Maixabel Lasa, the film’s subject, has conducted a pre-recorded Q&A that will be shown after the film.
Aldington said she hoped the screenings would “create conversations in the community” about the power of restorative justice.
She said the idea for the film festival came about “two or three years ago”, when a string of films which featured restorative justice were released.
Shetland Arts has agreed to donate 100 per cent of the ticket income to the charity, which Aldington said was priceless for a charity which mostly relies on donations.
The arts trust has also let the charity use its second cinema screen for free.
Aldington estimated the charity receives around 12 referrals a year, but said that was not the actual number of people they would see.
“That could often be groups of people, or families, so you could probably times that number by at least four,” she said.
Despite a lack of major funding grants, Space2Face’s co-founder said they were “always trying to promote our services”.
“The more people that want to use us, the more we can argue the case for additional funding,” she added.
“We will always work to try get more funding.”
People can find more information about Space2Face’s film festival, and buy tickets for the screenings, here.
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