Watershed, Bristol facts for kids
Watershed
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| Established | 1982 |
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| Location | 1, Canons Road, Harbourside, Bristol |
| Type | Cinema, Culture & Technology, Cafe & Bar, Conferencing |
| Public transit access | Bus, ferry |
Watershed is a cool place in Bristol, UK. It opened in June 1982. It was the first centre in the United Kingdom just for media. It's located in old warehouses by the harbour.
Watershed has three cinemas. It also has a café and bar. There are spaces for events and meetings. It's home to the Pervasive Media Studio. Plus, there are offices for staff. Most of its areas are on the second floor. Many groups use Watershed for meetings and events. Watershed has over seventy full-time staff. It earns about £3.8 million each year. It gets money from its own sales. It also gets funding from arts groups. A report in 2010 called Watershed a "creative ecosystem." This means it's a place where many creative things happen. It helps new ideas grow.
History of Watershed
Watershed opened in 1982. The area around it was mostly empty back then. The buildings it uses were built in 1894. They were old and needed repairs. But they were special, with a Grade II listed building status. This means they are important old buildings.
By 2004, over half a million people visited Watershed each year. A big update happened in 2004 and 2005. It cost £2 million. They added a third cinema. The café and bar got bigger. The building also became easier for everyone to use. People could even sponsor seats in the new cinema. The first person to do this was actor Pete Postlethwaite.
Films and Festivals
Watershed shows many different films. It focuses on world and art films. It also hosts many film festivals. These include Depict!, Brief Encounters, and the Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Other festivals are Black Pyramid and Latin America Week. VisionSign celebrates deaf moving image culture. The Slapstick Film Festival is also held here.
Wildscreen, a festival for wildlife films, started at Watershed. So did Afrika Eye in 2005. This is a festival for African Cinema.
Watershed has regular activities too. These include evening classes. They have special film events. There's a film discussion group called Cinephiles. They also show educational films. These often come with introductions and notes. The British Film Institute often screens its films here.
The Keeping it Reel Series is for 12- to 15-year-olds. Since 1997, it has shown young people how films are made. Actor Paul McGann launched it in 1997. Experts gave talks and workshops. The BFI Film Academy Bristol is for 16-19-year-olds.
In 2000, The Independent on Sunday newspaper listed Watershed as a top independent cinema. They liked its wide range of international films. A 2002 poll by The Guardian newspaper rated Watershed as Britain's fifth most popular independent cinema.
Digital Media and Innovation
Watershed is more than just a cinema. It's a place for culture and new ideas. It helps businesses and connects people. It's also a research and innovation centre. Plus, it has a café/bar and attracts tourists.
For its first twenty years, Watershed focused on film and photos. In the 21st century, it started using online media more. Now, more people visit its online spaces than the building itself.
Watershed has a website called dShed.net. It shows digital art from artists around the world. It also features work by local community groups. This site hosts the yearly online short-film festival, Depict.org. This festival picks "micro films" that are no longer than ninety seconds. The winner gets a cash prize. In 2006, eShed.net started. It shows digital art made by young people in Bristol. Watershed staff also helped create other websites. These include electricpavilion.org, electricdecember.org, and bristolstories.org.
Dshed.net lets artists and communities try out new media. It helps them work together. It has videos of talks from Watershed. It also has project resources. And it shows short digital productions. ElectricDecember.org is an online advent calendar. It has been running every year since 1999.
Watershed also had a part called iShed. It started in 2007. iShed helped create new projects. It supported new ideas and technologies. It also helped new talent grow. In 2016, iShed joined the Pervasive Media Studio. It was then called iShed Ventures. iShed worked on funding schemes and events. It did research and gave advice. It worked with businesses, artists, and universities. Its main projects were Media Sandbox and Theatre Sandbox.
iShed also ran The Pervasive Media Studio. This studio is a team-up between Watershed, HP Labs, and UWE. It helps with research and development across different fields. The Pervasive Media Studio used to be in another building. In 2011, it moved into the Watershed building.
