Osprey Short Film Awards - Now Accepting Entries

We are now accepting entries for the 2026 Osprey Short Film Awards. We are looking for films with a Cumbrian connection (e.g made in Cumbria or by Cumbrians), made after 2024 and under 15 minutes. For full details on how to enter please visit our Shorts page.

Keswick Film Festival 2026 Dates Announced

We are delighted to reveal that the dates of the 2026 Festival will be

19 - 22 March! 

Our new KFF Director Julia Vickers says: “In usual Keswick Film Festival style, we’ll be showing a fabulous selection of films from across the world in our favourite places – the Alhambra Cinema, Theatre by the Lake and Rheged. Save those dates!”

Scores & Awards

That was quite an Anniversary!

Thank you to all of you who came to Keswick last weekend to make it such an enjoyable weekend. It is always lovely to see people renewing acquaintanceships 12 months on – and to welcome so many new faces to KFF.

There was an incredible range of films on offer, which made it hard to choose at times – and the scores reflected the quality of the films in the programme.

Eventually, it was The Marching Band that took the audience award – the third consecutive year that a film at Rheged has taken the prize. The Monk and the Gun wasn’t far behind. You can see the Top 15 films here on the website.

The Ospreys continue to amaze with their demonstration of film-making prowess. The selection gets better each year – and what a treat to have Ian Picken, KFF’s first Festival Director, to announce the Audience Award was won by Stuart Armstrong for Lay-by. Harvey Greenfield director Jonnie Howard presented the Student Award to Asa Pegler for It Get's Better and the Open Award went to Juliet Klottrup for Travelling Home, which if you missed can now be seen on the Nowness platform.

Sunday At The Festival

Tickets are selling fast for most screenings at the Alhambra and may not be available on the door. 

It's the final day of the Festival and there's still lots to see. Find out why everybody is talking about Emilia Pérez this afternoon at The Alhambra. There are two fantastic £5 Family Films at the Theatre; This Is Going To Be Big and Robot Dreams and why not start the day with a selection of short films from the Oska Bright Film Festival showcasing work by learning disabled and autistic people.

• 11am The Marching Band - Rheged
• 11am Oska Bright: Short Films - Theatre By The Lake FREE ENTRY
• 11am Nickel Boys - Alhambra
• 11am Radiator - Alhambra Screen 2 Additional Screening
• 2pm This Is Going To Be Big - Theatre By The Lake £5 Family Film
• 2pm Mongrel - Rheged
• 2pm Emilia Pérez - Alhambra
• 2pm Point Break - Alhambra Screen 2
• 5pm Brief History of a Family - Alhambra
• 5pm Sister Midnight - Rheged
• 5pm Robot Dreams - Theatre By The Lake £5 Family Film
• 5pm Radiator - Alhambra Screen 2 SOLD OUT
• 8pm Cottontail - Alhambra Limited Availability

Please see the full programme or download the timetable for more details on all the films.

Saturday At The Festival

Tickets are selling fast for most screenings at the Alhambra and may not be available on the door. 

Our films at Rheged begin today with Tarika and The Monk And The Gun. The Ospreys showcase a selection of films made in Cumbria or by Cumbrians at the Theatre. Screen2/Take2 bring back some old favourites including Amélie and Whale Rider along with a chance to remember our former patron John Hurt working with David Lynch in The Elephant Man. The Oscar winning Flow  and The Brutalist can be seen at the Alhambra

• 9:15am Harvey Greenfield is Running Late - Alhambra
• 11am Where Olive Trees Weep - Theatre By The Lake
• 11am Flow - Alhambra SOLD OUT
• 11am Tarika - Rheged
• 11am The Elephant Man - Alhambra Screen 2
• 2pm Osprey Short Film Awards - Theatre By The Lake FREE ENTRY
• 2pm The Brutalist - Alhambra
• 2pm The Monk And The Gun - Rheged
• 2pm Jeanne Dielman... - Alhambra Screen 2
• 4pm Tommy - Theatre By The Lake
• 6:30pm The Teacher - Alhambra
• 6:30pm Amélie - Alhambra Screen 2
• 7pm White Rock - Theatre By The Lake
• 9pm Black Night - Theatre By The Lake
• 9pm Whale Rider - Alhambra Screen 2
• 9:15pm Stormskerry Maja - Alhambra

Please see the full programme or download the timetable for more details on all the films.

Friday At The Festival

Here's what's coming up on the first full day of the Festival:

• 12pm Jeanne Dielman... - Alhambra Screen 2 SOLD OUT
• 1pm The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future - Theatre By The Lake
• 1pm The Ceremony - Alhambra
• 4pm No End - Theatre By The Lake
• 4pm Misericordia - Alhambra SOLD OUT
• 4pm Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Alhambra Screen 2
• 6:30pm Crybaby Bridge - Theatre By The Lake
• 6:30pm Quiet Life - Alhambra
• 6:30pm Welcome to the Sticks - Alhambra Screen 2 SOLD OUT
• 8:45pm Seed of the Sacred Fig - Alhambra
• 9pm All Your Faces - Theatre By The Lake
• 9pm Spirited Away - Alhambra Screen 2

Please see the full programme or download the timetable for more details on all the films.

25th Keswick Film Festival Starts Tonight

Our 25th Festival starts tonight with the sold out screening of  Harvey Greenfield is Running Late. We've put on an additional screening on Saturday morning so more of you can see the film. There's lots of other great films to see before Sunday night, including recent Oscar winners Flow, The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez. We also have short films with our own Osprey Awards returning on Saturday and a selection from the Oska Bright Fest on Sunday.

Your biggest problem will be deciding which to see if they are on at the same time!

Whatever you choose, don’t miss out on a weekend to remember!

Last Chance To Get A Festival Pass

Due to unprecedented demand Festival passes will only be available to purchase until the close of business on Monday 3rd March. You can get yours from the Alhambra website.

Individual tickets will remain on sale and are still available for most films. 

Ticket Availability Update

KFF is proving very popular this year! Passes are selling well. Our opening film Harvey Greenfield Is Running Late is now sold out and we have just opened up Screen 2 for Cottontail on Sunday evening. 

There is still capacity for the majority of the screenings, particularly at the Theatre by the Lake and at Rheged, however anyone who hasn't yet booked a pass will now find themselves with a more limited range of options from which to choose. Individual tickets are still available.

Sold Out

• Opening Night - tickets still available for Saturday's screening of Harvey Greenfield Is Running Late 
• Radiator - Additional screening Sunday 11am

Limited Availability

• Cottontail - Screen 2 now available

Updated: 5 March 19:10

Has there ever been a better decade for music than the 70’s?

We old guys at Keswick Film Festival think not and to prove the point, we have a Tommy: 50th Anniversary Screening and White Rock, featuring a musical score by Rick Wakeman, at his creative best.

Townshend’s incredible concept album was dialled up to 11 by Ken Russell’s direction and a cast of Rock ‘n Roll royalty – Elton John, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton and the incomparable Roger Daltrey. 

Less frenetic but beautiful to watch and hear, White Rock is the groundbreaking documentary of the 1976 Innsbruck Winter Olympics, narrated by James Coburn. It is said to have changed sports documentaries for ever.

The big stage shows from The Who and Yes were an integral part of the 70’s music scene but a lot of the energy of the decade came from smaller venues; pubs, clubs and Students Unions. Graham Parker and the Rumour were an iconic band from the period and Graham will be one of our guests at KFF this year – by virtue of his acting role in Harvey Greenfield is Running Late.

We can’t wait to welcome him – and you to Keswick.

Films At Rheged

Our partnership with Rheged continues this festival with a remarkably diverse slate showing on their big screen, making it easy to base yourself here all day. 

On Saturday 8th March we bring you Tarika (11am) and The Monk and the Gun (2pm).

Teenager Tarika lives with her father Ali in rural Bulgaria, but is isolated from and ostracised by the locals. She has started to develop ‘butterfly wings’, a rare spinal condition inherited from her mother and which is a source of deep superstition. When the villagers’ intolerance becomes dangerous Ali must protect his daughter, in this richly textured allegory. 

After Lunana:A Yak in the Classroom won the 2023 Audience Award, we went hunting for the Director’s next effort and David found a distributor in Germany. The Monk and the Gun is again set in Bhutan, this time in 2006, and the last country to connect to the internet and television is preparing for its first election. Fearing upheavals, an ageing llama sends a young monk on a quest to acquire a pair of guns. With intriguing surprises and colourful characters, this delightfully warm and slyly satirical window onto the world’s happiest nation, builds towards a joyous finale.

On Sunday 9th March, screenings start at 11am with moving comedy The Marching Band (En Fanfare), in which an acclaimed conductor needs a bone marrow transplant. Adopted, he uncovers the existence of a younger blood brother who plays the trombone in a small marching band. A charming tearjerker whose tender moments pack a rare emotional punch.

This is followed at 2pm by Taiwanese drama Mongrel - a raw, commanding and thoughtful film about compassion and decency in the face of inequality and invisibility. We follow undocumented Thai care worker Oom, living in a remote region of Taiwan as he cares for the disabled and elderly, and is forced to navigate their mutual lack of status and currency.

At 5pm, our final Rheged film, Sister Midnight, is a comedy-drama that sees newlywed Uma trapped in domestic hell in a single-roomed Mumbai shack with her ineffectual husband - and bored out of her skull. She unearths feral impulses she never knew she had as this surreal fable takes us to places we were not expecting. 

Screen2/Take2

Screen2/Take2 is the chance to bring two generations of festival-goers together - our regular audience has had the chance to select some of their favourite films from previous festivals and our newest audience, evolving out of our partnership with Carlisle College and its students, has had an input into the selection of films that they would like to see at a Festival. The two selections are not mutually exclusive - the message from KFF is 'try something different, something out of your comfort zone'

The selection is:

Friday 7th March

• 4pm Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
• 6:30pm Welcome to the Sticks (TBC)
• 9pm Spirited Away

Saturday 8th March

• 11am Elephant Man
• 6:30pm Amelie
• 9pm Whale Rider

Sunday 9th March

• 2pm Point Break
• 5pm Radiator

Screen2/Take2 has been made possible by support from the BFI and Film Hub North, the Alhambra's state-of-the-art facility will be the perfect place to revisit old favourites or see something entirely new.

Our Opening Film

We are pleased to announce that the opening film for KFF25 will be Harvey Greenfield Is Running Late - winner of the Best International Feature at the 2023 Dublin International Comedy Film Festival.

When an indecisive people pleaser is running late for the world's busiest day, his misguided decisions escalate towards a single choice that risks everything he holds dear. Harvey Greenfield explores our need to please, and why it's sometimes healthy to, every now and then, just sit in a shed and play Subbuteo by yourself, eat biscuits and listen to Meat Loaf.

Adapted from Paul Richard’s one man show at the Edinburgh fringe, Harvey Greenfield features not only Paul reprising the title role but also a host of familiar faces, from Doctor Who, The Office, Red Dwarf, Ted Lasso and Blue Peter. Director Jonnie Howard will be joining us at the Alhambra with, we hope some members from this stellar cast, including Keswick singer Sophia Grice.

Oscar Hopefuls at Keswick Film Festival

Forgive us, but we are a bit chuffed with ourselves as a number of our selections for the KFF programme have been recognised as Oscar contenders.

Three films, The Brutalist, Nickel Boys and Emilia Pérez are all in contention for the Best Picture award and two, Flow and Seed of the Sacred Fig are nominated as Best International Feature. For an animated film like Flow (also up for the award in that category) to be nominated in a feature film category, is testament to the brilliance of the storytelling and the animator’s art.

Adrien Brody and Karla Sofia Gascón are up for Best Actor and actress for their roles in The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez and their respective co-stars Guy Pearce, Felicity Jones and Zoe Saldana are nominated as Best Supporting Actors. The films also feature as nominees in the Best Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay categories.

The one-of-a-kind movie Emilia Pérez even has two nominations for best original song. The Alhambra will be rocking on Sunday afternoon.

25th Anniversary Merchandise

To celebrate our 25th Anniversary, we thought it was time to have some new T shirts and we thought that you might like to look the part as well. Knowing what a well-turned out crowd you are, we reckoned you might like to coordinate that with a stylish tote bag, of such superb quality, it should last you until our 50th Anniversary!

If you would like to purchase one or more of these iconic, soon-to-be-collectors'-item pieces head over to our merchandise page and place your order for collection at the Festival.

Tickets and Passes on Sale from Friday 10th January

We are thrilled to announce that tickets and passes for KFF 2025 will go on sale from Friday 10th January, from the Alhambra Box Office.

Arrangements for passholders to book seats for individual films have changed and detailed instructions on how to do this will be made available.