2017 Audience Award Results

As ever, documentaries scored highly at KFF, with Life, Animated (92.1%) gaining the biggest overall score, closely followed by We Are Many (91.7%) and Paths of the Soul (87.7%).

Loving (84%) was voted the best dramatic film, with Manchester by the Sea (82.5%) and Tanna (81.1%) not far behind. There were over 1250 4* or 5* ratings for films at the Festival. As ever, though, the KFF audience bucked the trend as La La Land was given something of a thumbs down.

 

All of the audience scores are now available here.

Festival Awards

We asked film critics Matt Glasby, Karen Krizanovich and Ali Catterall to nominate a film for the inaugural Keswick Film Festival's Critic's Award. On Saturday we showed Matt's choice of Son Of Saul, Karen's selection of Arrival and ended the night with Ali's late night screening of Raw. On Sunday Matt, Karen and Ali put forward their cases for their films, the audience vote was combined with Saturday's rating and we declared Arrival the winner.

The Osprey Short Film Awards also took place on Saturday and both the Judges Award and the Audience Award went to A Shepherd's Hand. This 5 minute film directed by Richard Berry and Jago Miller is based on a poem written by Geoff Cox following his attempt at the endurance run of the Joss Naylor Lakeland Challenge.

Writer (and endurance runner) Geoff Cox with the Osprey prize certificates

We're still counting all the votes for the Audience Award for new films at the festival but should have the results soon.

Sunday At The Festival

Coming up today:

• Life, Animated ~ Alhambra 10:00
• How The Rich Avoid Tax with Greg Wise and director Paul Murton ~ Studio 10:00

• Loving ~ Alhambra 12:30
• Michael Curtiz Talk by Adam Feinstein ~ Studio 13:00

• Critics Debate ~ Alhambra 15:00
• The Breaking Point ~ Studio 15:15

• Toni Erdmann ~ Alhambra 16:30
• Stevie ~ Studio 17:30

• La La Land ~ Alhambra 20:00

Saturday At The Festival

Coming up today:

• We Are Many ~ Studio 10:00
• Swallows and Amazons ~ Theatre By The Lake 11:00
• Paths of the Soul ~ Rheged 11:10
• Osprey Short Film Awards ~ Alhambra 12:00

• Wolf Totem ~ Rheged 14:10
• Critic's Choice: Son of Saul ~ Theatre By The Lake 14:30
• The Salesman ~ Alhambra 14:30

• After The Storm ~ Theatre By The Lake 17:00
• Casablanca ~ Studio 17:00
• Critic's Choice: Arriv ~ Alhambra 17:00

• White Mischief + Q&A with Greta Scacchi ~ Theatre By The Lake 20:00
• Paterson ~ Alhambra 20:00

• Critic's Choice: Raw ~ Alhambra 22:45

Friday At The Festival

Coming up today at the festival:

• Tanna ~ Theatre By The Lake 12:00
• Yankee Doodle Dandy ~ Studio 12:00
• Graduation ~ Alhambra 12:00

• Manchester By The Sea ~ Alhambra 14:45
• The Browning Version ~ Theatre By The Lake 15:00
• Draw on Sweet Night ~ Studio 15:00

• The Unknown Girl ~ Theatre By The Lake 17:30
• Neruda ~ Alhambra 17:45
• Captains of the Clouds ~ Studio 18:00

• The Player ~ Theatre By The Lake 20:15
• Reaching For The Moon ~ Studio 20:30
• American Honey ~ Alhambra 20:30

More Festival Guests

We are delighted to announce that Paul Murton will be joining us on the Sunday of the Festival. Paul directed How the Rich Avoid Tax, one of our screenings in partnership with Keswick Peace and Human Rights Group. Paul is an accomplished director with The Bill and Casualty amongst his credits and he appears in front of the camera in his travelogue series Grand Tours of the Scottish Islands.

Our second new guest is a little more wooden in its delivery – by kind permission of Nick Barton and the Windermere Jetty Museum Amazon will be stationed outside the Theatre by the Lake on Saturday morning, skull and crossbones fluttering. We may even have a real life Amazon in person, too!

Festival Fringe - Saturday 11th February

Keswick Film Festival kicks off with its own fringe event on Saturday 11th February with a special programme of 4 films at The Alhambra.

Designed as a community event, admission to each film will cost just one penny.
Why the entry fee of one penny? Well Keswick Film Festival is asking "A Penny for Your Thoughts" - the final 3 films that day have been chosen by top film critics Matt Glasby, Karen Krizanovich and Ali Catterall as their favourite films of all time. Their video introductions are on the website and by writing a short review, you could win tickets for a screening the following weekend.

Details of the competition are on the website.

KFF has always tried to put on a film for family audiences and this year it will be at the Fringe:

11.00am Kubo and the Two Strings, an animation that is getting rave reviews, with the voice of Kubo played by Art Parkinson – Rickon Stark in Game of Thrones.

Followed by our critics' choices:

2.00pm – Airplane! Non-stop gags and dubious taste in Karen Krizanovich's choice. Roger, Roger. Do we have clearance, Clarence?

4.00pm - If.... Matt Glasby has chosen this classic film set in a British public school, with Malcolm McDowell in his first big screen role – compare and contrast with The Browning Version at the Festival.

6.15 – Theatre of Blood Ali Catterall has chosen this comedy horror about murder in the Critics' Circle, starring Vincent Price, Diana Rigg and just about every other British actor from the 1970s that you could name

This is binge cinema at its best, nostalgia and a lot of laughs and we hope, in great company. To add to the experience and to keep you going throughout the afternoon, our friends at Woodstone Pizza will have slices sizzling hot and ready in the breaks in between films – just order in the foyer.

Greta Scacchi Comes To Keswick

We are thrilled to announce that Greta Scacchi will be our principal guest at the next February’s Keswick Film Festival!

Familiar to us all from the 2016 adaptation of War and Peace and fresh from the West End stage, where she appeared in The Kenneth Branagh Company's The Entertainer, Miss Scacchi will be presenting three of her most iconic films at the Festival - The Browning Version, from Carlisle born director Mike Figgis; White Mischief, the marvellous ensemble piece in which she co starred with Charles Dance and Joss Ackland and; Robert Altman’s The Player, surely one of the best films about Hollywood ever made.

She last appeared on screen at Keswick Film Festival in Ways to Live Forever, in 2012. That film and Alex Etel's appearance at the Alhambra were stand out moments from KFF's recent history.

Miss Scacchi's early appearances were opposite such greats as Laurence Olivier (The Ebony Tower) and James Mason (Doctor Fischer of Geneva) and she began her film career under the guidance of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. Add Harrison Ford, Robert Altman and Gabriel Byrne to the mix and the opportunity to hear more about her career will be one of the highlights of the Festival.

Critical Acclaim

Our films for the new Critics' Award have been announced and they genuinely represent the quality and diversity of film making over the last year. Matt Glasby has selected Son of Saul, the rightful winner of the Academy Award in 2016; Karen Krizanovich has chosen Arrival which featured heavily in the best films of 2016 listings and Ali Catterall has gone for Raw which also made it on to those lists on the basis of a few previews and festival screenings.

If you have been lucky enough to catch one of these films or are looking forward to seeing them, join the conversation on Twitter using #KeswickFilm, Facebook or the film pages here on the website – the Critics' Award is all about your opinions.

It's Not All Subtitles

Whilst we pride ourselves on bringing you the best of world cinema, that doesn't exclude the English speaking nations.

We open with The Patriarch, a family saga from New Zealand, then there is a strong showing from the USA - Manchester by the Sea sees a superb performance from Casey Affleck, La La Land is a "beguiling musical romance" starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, from the director of Whiplash. The joyous Paterson and Reaching For The Moon are part of our Poets theme and Loving tells of persecution of an inter-racial couple in 1950s Virginia.

Throughout the weekend we will be featuring the work of Michael Curtiz. You would think making Casablanca would be enough in one year for any man, but in 1942 Curtiz made Yankee Doodle Dandy and Captains of the Clouds as well. Find out more about the man and his films from our special guest, Adam Feinstein.

Poetry At Keswick Film Festival

Our poetry strand this year crosses continents and spans centuries.

Draw on Sweet Night is festival favourite Tony Britten's working of the story of John Wilbye, writer of madrigals; Reaching for the Moon chronicles of the tragic love affair between American poet Elizabeth Bishop and Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares, against the breathtaking backdrop of Rio de Janeiro.

Neruda, where director Pablo Larrain and Gael Garcia Bernal combine again to great effect, is also set in South America as poetry and politics collide in 1940s Chile. Jim Jarmusch's Paterson was described as "perhaps the most purely pleasurable film at Cannes this year". A week in the life of a New Jersey poet and bus driver, it is a joy to watch with scenes blatantly stolen by Nellie the bulldog, the rightful winner of the Palme D'Og.

Critical Acclaim – The New Critics' Award at KFF18

Do you read the reviews before going to the pictures? Does a bad review stop you from going?

Critics affect our viewing choices and can make or break a new release, so this year we are bringing 3 top critics to Keswick and asking them to choose their film of the year, present it at KFF and we are asking you, the audience, to vote on their selection. In the run up to the Festival and over the course of the weekend there will be an ongoing, online conversation about those choices.

Before the Festival we will be showing their all-time favourite films – Airplane! If.... and Theatre of Blood - in an amazing triple bill at the Alhambra and for those of you not able to get there, we will be inviting you to watch them at home and join in the conversation from there.

Why not write your own review of one of those classics for the chance to win tickets at the Festival!

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive our e-mails to find out just which films our critics have selected and use #KeswickFilm to join the conversation.

The Critics

Matt Glasby (@mattglasby) is a film critic for Total Film and GQ among others, and a member of the London Critics' Circle.

Karen Krizanovich (@Krizanovich) is a journalist, writer, researcher, public speaker and broadcaster and is the honorary secretary of the London Film Critics’ Circle and a jury associate for the international film critics’ association

Ali Catterall (@AliCatterall) is a film journalist based in London, who writes and has written for a great many journals, some of which actually still exist, including The Guardian, Total Film, Q, Time Out and The Word.

Films At Rheged

Once again we'll be heading to Rheged on the Saturday of the Festival (Feb 18th) to show two films on their giant screen.

Paths of the Soul

Not many films score 100% on Rotten Tomatoes but this tale of an epic 1200 mile pilgrimage across Tibet will make wonderful use of the Rheged Imax screen.

"Road movies are a staple of cinema but they are rarely as breathtaking, immersive and intense as Zhang Yangs fascinating docu-fiction hybrid....This is slow cinema at its best."

Amber Wilkinson Eye for Film

Wolf Totem

A UK premiere of Jean Jacques Annaud's (The Name of the Rose, Seven Years in Tibet) masterpiece, Wolf Totem is set in Mongolia during the cultural revolution as two students needing 're-education' are sent to live with nomadic herdsmen.

Katie Walsh, Seattle Times

Festival Newsletter

Make sure you are signed up to our newsletter to be the first to hear about the latest additions to the programme.  Here's part of the last email from our new director Ian Payne:

The nights are drawing in, there’s a nip in the air, the leaves are changing colour and our thoughts naturally turn to The Keswick Film Festival! 

What is there to look forward to during the long winter evenings to come? The programme of films already looks stunning. American Honey, Toni Erdmann and La La Land have been receiving tremendous reviews and will be highlights of the Festival. Add to those titles The Patriarch and Neruda and the prospects look even brighter. As ever, our selections portray the best and worst of human behaviour, from the creation of lyrical poetry for the delight of others to the awful intolerance people can feel for one another.

Osprey Short Film Awards 2017

We are now accepting entries for the 2017 Osprey Short Film Awards at the 18th Keswick Film Festival. To be considered for the awards a film must

• Have a significant connection to Cumbria or Keswick Film Festival
• Be no more than 10 minutes long.
• Have been completed during 2016

For full details on all the rules and how to enter please visit the Short Film Awards section of the website.