History of SYFF

The Scottish Youth Film Foundation began life as the Scottish Youth Film Festival. Hosting its inaugural event in Armadale in 2015, the organisation continued to run its annual festival and worked with young people across Scotland to make films.

This was the winning film for the first festival.

Darth Vader at Home

For festival three and four, the location moved to Glasgow and since then the Festival has been held in Edinburgh, Dumfries, Perth, back to Armadale for its 10th edition and Fife.

In 2017, we incorporated as a charity, first as the Scottish Youth Film Festival and then became the Foundation in 2019.

SYFF continued to run outreach projects with groups of young filmmakers from across the country and also started working in schools, using film education to raise attainment in the classroom.

In 2021, SYFF undertook its largest project to date, taking 11 young filmmakers to the COP 26 Summit in Glasgow where they broadcast five live shows over the course of the five final nights of the Climate Change Conference. They were also featured in the Official COP Programme with their Change Film Competition Prize Giving held in the IMAX Cinema at the Glasgow Science Centre, which featured presenters Fiona Hyslop MSP and Miranda Richardson.

You can watch the Gala Screening below -

And our documentary about the COP TV Project -

In 2022, SYFF secured funding support from The Sean Connery Foundation which facilitated recruitment of a General Manager and for the charity to expand its scope.

Since then we have used this model in our Festival of Politics and Future Proof projects and now have a dedicated studio space which young people can use.

We’ve continued working with young people from across Scotland and the festival continues to be the focal point of our work each year, allowing young people the chance to celebrate the work of their peers and gain practical insight into the FiIm and TV industry in Scotland and beyond.

In 2024, the Scottish Youth Film Foundation won the Filmmaking Champions Award at the Into Film Awards, Odeon Leicester Square, London.