Film screening & conversation: storytelling, narrative change and countering division

Stories shape what we believe is possible. In a moment when division is being actively fuelled through misinformation and algorithmically amplified grievance, the capacity of communities to tell their own stories and reach new audiences has never mattered more. Yet communications and storytelling capacity remains chronically underfunded, treated as a nice-to-have rather than as infrastructure essential to justice and cohesion.

Hosted in partnership with Media Trust and City Bridge Foundation, this session opens with a screening of short films spotlighting the work of grassroots and community organisations - selected to reflect how organisations are shifting narratives, challenging dominant stories and building solidarity across difference. The films draw on Media Trust's work with organisations across its network, including through its Stronger Voices programme, which strengthens the communications capacity of London-based equalities organisations. They also reflect Media Trust's growing focus on short-form, social-media-first storytelling - helping organisations build the kind of communications that reach new audiences and cut through in a rapidly changing media landscape.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A, exploring what it takes to build genuine communications capacity; how organisations can tell stories that centre underrepresented voices; and what funders need to do to resource narrative change at the scale and pace the moment requires.

This session will be particularly relevant if you are thinking about how to fund communications and storytelling as justice infrastructure, and if you want to gain a deeper understanding what supporting narrative change looks like in practice.