Award Winners At Keswick Film Festival

Each year KFF offers an Audience Award for the best of the current crop of films, both features and documentaries based on audience ratings.

In terms of feature films, it was no surprise that Three Billboards topped the poll, although it is nice to see a film that actually lives up to the hype. Edie and A Fantastic Woman were worthy runners up – vastly different and so enjoyable.

There was a bumper crop of documentaries this year, all of which were well received. It was wonderful to see new faces at the Festival attracted by Our Last Tango and the positive response to Human Flow  and to Demain is cause for hope. Amazingly Our Last Tango and Human Flow both scored 90.63% followed by Demain with 86.2%.

Scores for all the films are now available on the website.

The 10th Osprey Short Film Awards took place on the Saturday at the Festival. The Judges Prize went to Best Of Three, created by a group of 16-19 year olds as part of the BFI Film Academy with Signal Film and Media. The Audience Award went to The Bob Graham Round: Running the Fells with Friends by Kaleel Zibe. Congratulations to all the filmmakers who took part.

Sunday at the Festival

It's the final day of the Festival but there's still lots to see:

10:00 Keswick Peace and Human Rights Group presents Open Bethlehem - Studio.
11:45 Gook - Alhambra.

13:45 The Square - Alhambra.
14:00 Human Flow - Rheged.
15:30 Neil Sinyard on George Stevens - Studio.

17:00 Shane - Studio.
17:00 The Third Murder - Alhambra.

20:00 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri - Alhambra.

Saturday at the Festival

It's a busy day at the festival with so much to choose from:

10:00 Keswick Peace and Human Rights Group presents Demain - Studio
10:00 10p entry: A Monster Calls plus Q&A with star Lewis MacDougall - Alhambra

11:15 Our Last Tango - Rheged
11:30 The Work - Theatre By The Lake

13:00 Osprey Short Film Awards - Free Entry - Alhambra
13:45 Human Flow - Rheged
14:00 Mountains May Depart - Theatre By The Lake

15:00 A Fantastic Woman - Alhambra

17:00 Tawai - A Voice from the Forest + Bruce Parry Q&A - Theatre By The Lake
17:00 Woman Of The Year - Studio
17:30 Dark River - Alhambra

20:00 That Good Night, introduced by Anwen Hurt - Theatre By The Lake
20:00 L'Amant Double - Alhambra

22:30 Scared Stiff in the 1960s A talk by Patrick Glen - Alhambra
23:30 Night Of The Living Dead - Alhambra

Friday at the Festival

It's the first full day of the festival and here's what's coming up:

12:00 La Isla - Theatre By The Lake
12:00 The Rider - Alhambra

14:30 A Woman's Life - Theatre By The Lake
14:30 Trophy - Studio
14:30 Directions - Alhambra

17:00 Heartstone - Theatre By The Lake
17:00 Talk: Cumbria On Film - Studio
17:00 Sami Blood - Alhambra

20:00 Sicilian Ghost Story - Alhambra
20:00 Clouds Of Glory - Studio
20:00 Blade of the Immortal - Theatre By The Lake

It's Nearly Time...

After many months of planning and anticipation, Keswick Film Festival starts on Thursday!

It looks like we are going to have a full house to welcome director Simon Hunter with Edie, our opening film.

Other guests are now packing their bags to join us over the weekend.

Friday’s guest, David Banning has honed his talk on Cumbria on Film and Lisi Tribble will be travelling north to introduce Clouds of Glory. We will also welcome Lewis MacDougall to Keswick before he hosts A Monster Calls on Saturday morning.

Our Latin American formation dance team have been practising hard for their display after Our Last Tango on Saturday and of course, explorer Bruce Parry should have no trouble finding us for his Q&A after Tawai – A Voice from the Forest.

We are looking forward to welcoming Saturday evening’s guests, Anwen Hurt who will introduce That Good Night in what promises to be a bittersweet session at the Theatre and Patrick Glen who will undoubtedly bring a touch of movie nostalgia to the Festival, with Scared Stiff in the 1960s.

Then on Sunday, we have Neil Sinyard with us, talking about the great Hollywood Director, George Stevens. The screenings of Woman of the Year and Shane will be a superb counterpoint to the more contemporary offerings over the weekend.

What on earth are we going to do on Monday?

It is Time to Dance

There will be dance on stage and dance on screen at Keswick in the next couple of weeks.

On the Tuesday (20th Feb) before the Keswick Film Festival, Phoenix Dance Theatre's Windrush: Calyx and Shadows is staged at the Theatre by the Lake.

The work lets us glimpse what the first generation of Caribbean immigrants experienced when they came to England 70 years ago. These new arrivals, known as the Windrush generation, named after the ship the SS Empire Windrush which brought 492 people from the Caribbean to the UK in 1948, marked the start of the post war immigration boom which was to radically change British society.

Then as part of the Festival itself, we have Our Last Tango, screening at Rheged on Saturday 24th at 11.15am.

Our Last Tango tells the life and love story of Argentina's most famous tango dancers Maria Nieves Rego and Juan Carlos Copes, who met as teenagers and danced together for nearly fifty years until a painful separation tore them apart. Relaying their story to a group of young tango dancers and choreographers from Buenos Aires, their story of love, hatred and passion is transformed into unforgettable tango choreographies.

After the screening, dancers from the Cockermouth U3A Latin American Formation Team will perform a short routine at Rheged before opening the floor to everyone inspired by what they have seen to get up and dance.

Bruce Parry comes to Keswick to introduce Tawai

Bruce Parry is coming to Keswick to introduce Tawai – A Voice from the Forest and to host a Q&A afterwards.

Tawai is Bruce's first feature film and draws on his experiences from earlier expeditions that formed the basis of his award-winning television series. He is perhaps best known for Tribe, which ran for three seasons showing him spending time living with indigenous peoples in locations such as Gabon, India, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Mongolia and Venezuela. However, he first came to prominence with children's programmes such as Serious Desert and Serious Jungle. His own jungle experience came, of course, with Amazon.

The film's title, Tawai, is the word the nomadic hunter gatherers of Borneo use to describe their inner feeling of connection to nature. The Guardian described the film as "an empathetic, sumptuously filmed homage to indigenous groups, particularly the Penan, a Bornean community that is held up by anthropologists as a model of a peaceful and egalitarian society."

Bruce is now a champion of the rights of indigenous peoples across the globe and feels that we in the west can and should learn from them. It will be a fascinating early evening session on Saturday 24th February.