While further discovering the social enterprise world, I became increasingly impressed by the influence of the creative industry on social impact amongst vulnerable people. Indeed, I realized that there are people in this field doing amazing things to achieve this mission.

During my personal journey as a social innovator with Social Enterprise Italy and Make Sense, I had the privilege to meet Christoph Warrack, founder and CEO of Open Cinema, an English social enterprise who leverages the film industry and film making best practices in favor of social impact on homeless people.

One of the missions of my blog, kindly provided by Vita Europe, is attempting to identify interesting and valuable social business practices that can give inspiration for replication around Europe. I believe that Open Cinema is a great example, and for that reason I interviewed Christoph on a lovely rainy day in London.

1. What is Open Cinema?

Open Cinema is a social enterprise that facilitates community film clubs for homeless and vulnerable people. It is the belief of Open Cinema that socially excluded people should have access to and derive from the benefits of culture as much as other members of society.

Open Cinema works with support services and local organizations in the social sector to establish weekly film clubs and offer filmmaking to explore their interest in film. Participants are enabled to produce short films around their own ideas and interests, gain new technical skills and develop other skills related to communication and teamwork.

2. Who is Christoph?

I grew up in a family of academics and filmmakers in rural Yorkshire. After studying philosophy and creative writing at the University of East Anglia, I started working on short films as a writer and director in London, later moving onto documentaries and feature films while actively contributing to voluntary projects. In 2005 I thought of a way of bringing together film and support work by launching a film club for homeless people in Soho (Central London), a district familiar to many homeless people as well as some of the country’s most renowned filmmakers.

3. What are the results achieved so far?

After four years’ experience running a successful film club at St. Patrick’s Church in Soho (Central London), Open Cinema launched a pilot program, by including other UK cities, of film clubs in the autumn of 2009. Since then, Open Cinema has screened almost 500 films in 17 centers with over 9,000 attendances.

Based on feedback and the results of the pilot program, we discovered that the majority of people who participated in a film club increased their level of confidence, ability to socialize and express themselves. The majority of participants have been inspired to try and learn new things and develop new interests in their own lives.

To quote an interesting story I would refer to David Anstee, a 63-year-old man that, after becoming part of an Open Cinema, was inspired to start a film course at the Met Film School. With David we co-directed “Heroes & Villains” and we won a prize as Best Animation movie at the Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival in 2011.

4.How can the film industry leverage more social impact?

The film industry has an enormous ability to affect social change from the grassroots level all the way through to higher levels. Thanks to the development of technology over the last decade, visual arts communications channels became more accessible to everyone. People that want to create awareness of social issues now can find really good support on video making practices. Filmmakers and film industry professionals, through knowledge and skills transfer, have the opportunity and the responsibility to drive this trend, to support and empower individuals into the social change process.

5. What are the future plans for Open Cinema?

Open Cinema is currently expanding its network and intends to open its first film clubs outside the UK this year. We have had requests from organizations and individuals in 41 countries who are interested in starting an Open Cinema in their own country.

We are also looking to expand our experience of running community cinemas in the homeless sector to other excluded communities such as care homes, prisons, women’s shelters, and young offenders. In the past year we have conducted projects for ex-offenders, disadvantaged young people, and older people with a range of impairments.

Finally, we are actively looking to develop film club partnerships with educational institutions in order to increase learning opportunities for our clients through film. The future will see Open Cinema as a platform for connecting low-income communities with the world’s best knowledge and culture, according to their interests and aspirations.

If you want to discuss about Open Cinema just ping me on Twitter @yes_we_tweet or #socinnowave

2011 will without a doubt be remembered as one of the most difficult years globally, not only in terms of financial tribulations that global markets have experienced in the past 12 months, but even more for the terrible social problems that have grown  exponentially.

Inequality, poverty and youth unemployment and unaccountability in the face of the crisis have reached dangerous peaks in countries that as of yet appear unready to provide solutions.

Whilst traditional medias have provided a narrative portraying the negative and destructive aspects of the transformation (I object to calling it crisis) other trends apparent in the last 12 months provide opportunities to look positively to the future.

In my inaugural post I would like to list some of the most important trends related to social innovation in 2011 in Europe.

The growth of commitment of big corporation in Social Innovation activities.

While big corporations are in the eye of main protests in Developed Countries, some of them have decided to commit themselves to efficient and interesting social innovation activities. To quote some, in February JP Morgan has invested more than 2.5 million of pounds in Bridge Venture, pioneer social venture capital fund based in UK. Dell has launched successfully its new Social Innovation Competition, while Deloitte has introduced social innovation topics more structurally in its business activities. The year ahead will be interesting for our understanding of the outcomes of those activities.

The growth of crowd-funding platforms for social initiatives in Europe.

2011 has been surely the consecration of Kiva, the most famous crowd-funding platform for social change. Moreover a lot of new platform have become popular, especially in Europe that historically is underdeveloped compared to US regarding the sector.

Indeed platform such as BuzzBank, BabyLoan.com in France or Betterplance.com in Germany have faced an interesting growth. Also Italy has seen the born of interesting actors in the field, such as Shinynotes.com.

The trend seems just at the beginning of its growth, peer to peer funding is expected to become even more popular in the near future.

The growth of non capital support for social entrepreneurs .

While social innovation sector has been principally complaining about the lack of capital available, I have personally been convinced that one of the main problems has always been the lack of projects ready to receive the claimed investment. Therefore the need to create a generation of social entrepreneurs able to satisfy the requests of investors becomes a principal priority and a challenge for the sector. The number of initiatives in support of social entrepreneurs have growth exponentially all over Europe with an obvious concentration in UK.

The Europe Social Business Initiative.

While European Union is facing the most difficult moment since it was born, very interesting steps have been taken to ensure the growth of the social enterprise and social investment/impact investing sector along the old continent. Indeed last November the Commission has launched officially an initiative aimed to the creation of a favorable environment for the development of social business in Europe, and of the social economy at large.

The provisional text of the Commission’s communication to the European Parliament on Social Business can be viewed here: Social Business document

Social Stock Exchange : from buzzing to facts.

The need to create a regulated market place for social entrepreneurs has been one of the main topics in the headlines of the social innovation debates of the past 4 years. Thanks to the Big Society Capital The Social Stock Exchange, which will use its £850,000 investment, will set up the world’s first stock exchange for social enterprises, to be located in London and improve access to capital for social entrepreneurs.

Hopefully the British experiment will prove to be a boost for the birth of similar projects around Europe.