That’s it! My international travel to promote our new training film, ‘Crossing the Line’, has come to an end…for now at least. While I won’t miss the night flights and airport food, I will miss seeing the excitement and enthusiasm of audiences at our film events in Europe, the Middle East and the Far East.
I finished the tour with the satisfaction of knowing that the story lines in 'Crossing the Line' are frighteningly realistic to audiences in all locations we visited and that the film has been enthusiastically welcomed as a training tool.
The international screenings started in Abu Dhabi in September at the ADGM’s Audit Outreach event with a warm welcome from His Excellency Rashed Abdulkarim Al Blooshi.
What an amazing auditorium and such an enthusiastic audience of over 300 auditors and accountants. This was the day I knew that the film worked outside of the UK. It was also great to see how two members of my team, Will Strickland and Helen Storr, walked the audience through all of the dilemmas faced by characters in the film. Thanks to Tim Land and his team for the invitation and to local director Hanadi Khalife and her team for helping to organise. You can watch a short video of the event here
Only a few weeks later, I spent a week in Cyprus with our Director for Europe, Christiana Diola, with seven screenings of the film in five days including two member events in Nicosia and Limassol, working with the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus and workshops at the offices of all of the largest Cypriot accountancy firms. It was so good to be back with the new film and to see audiences who remembered my earlier efforts, and who were looking forward to seeing the new one! I know Christiana has been running more screenings since I came home due to the level of interest in the film.
The most ambitious part of the tour was a hectic week spent in the Far East in mid-November where our regional teams had worked hard to set up three launch events in five days in Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. It was fantastic to meet many ICAEW members during that week who were so enthusiastic about the new film. I was also joined by some impressive speakers including John Kent, Global Head of Accounting Policy at HSBC, Jaymal Amin, Dr Ernest Kan, Richard Downs and Lai San Dong. The highlight of the week was probably the South East Asia Premiere which was held at the iconic and beautifully preserved Capitol Theatre in Singapore. I am struggling to recall a more impressive venue where I have screened any of the eight films I’ve made over the last 20 years. Many thanks to Stacey Ho, Elaine Hong, Elaine Chong, Shenola Gonzales and their wider teams.
Promoting the film internationally has not all been down to me. I’ve had fantastic support from my team. Will Strickland followed up his co-presenting duties in Abu Dhabi by staging a screening at the main cinema in the Cayman Islands in November while ICAEW President, Derek Blair, took the film with him for a first screening to an event for our members in Mauritius just a couple of weeks ago.
A wider team from Professional Standards, supported by our Regions team, has also helped promote the film at a series of regional events around the UK in Birmingham, Jersey, Manchester, Newcastle, Southampton and Cambridge. Thanks to Will (again), Nick Reynolds, Dean Neaves and Becky Carr.
And my reflections looking back on all of this activity? I will remember the very warm welcome, the shocked look on audience members’ faces when the drama ramps up in Part 4 of the film, the fierce debates which the film provoked when we stopped it at key moments during our workshops, the differing results from the poll questions from location to location and, most of all, the number of people staying behind to find out why a lawyer ended up making drama films about accountants and directors.
Why do I continue to make my films? I believe it is important for a regulator to spend as much time trying to stop people getting it wrong as it does on monitoring and enforcing, and the films are my contribution to our ambition to be regarded as the best example of an improvement regulator.
I also think the best way to educate is to create interesting content which hooks an audience member’s attention which should also mean that the messages resonate for longer. Our current feedback score on the film (based on over 600 pieces of feedback) stands at 4.8 out of 5. I’m very happy with that!
What’s next? I hope there will be more opportunities to show ‘Crossing the Line’ in the UK and internationally. I have been privileged to have been invited to participate in training events held by many UK firms and to see the creativity which has gone into getting the best out of ‘Crossing the Line’, and would be happy to receive more offers. I am also hoping to put more global licences in place with the major networks to ensure that the film is used as an educational tool all around the world (the film is already subtitled into French, Arabic and Mandarin with more languages on the way).
Will there be another film? While my wife has been at pains to remind me how many times I was heard to say ‘I’m never making another one’ during my writers’ block phases at the start of creating ‘Crossing the Line’, she knows that I have come back from my travels re-energised and ready to start work on film no. five for ICAEW (nine in total) and we had our first team meeting kicking around ideas at the start of this week…watch this space.
— Duncan Wiggetts, Chief Officer, Professional Standards
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The film was created to support firms in strengthening audit quality and nurturing ethical decision-making, and I am delighted to see the profession embracing it so widely. For inspiration on how to incorporate the film into training programmes for your staff, take a look at our case studies. For more information including how to access the film, please visit www.icaew.com/crossingtheline