Accommodation offers for the Festival weekend

This year, a number of Keswick Hotels and B&Bs have offered discounts on accommodation for the Festival weekend. There are a range of offers here on our website, including the option to stay on the Sunday night free of charge.

Our early bird offer on Film Festival passes runs out in the new year, so now is the time to book if you would like that extra £5 to spend on fine Keswick Brewery ales (other beverages are available) on your weekend at the Festival.

Sorry To Bother You and more films

We've announce some more films for our 20th Festival. I can guarantee that you will be still talking about Border days after seeing it. From the writer of the novel Let the Right One In, Border is the tale of a Swedish Customs Officer with the ability to sense people's emotions – a smuggler's nightmare. As she discovers where this peculiar gift comes from, we move into magical territory.

Staying in the Nordic countries, Arctic is a gripping Icelandic thriller with Mads Mikkelsen and from Demark we have The Guilty, a taut, gripping drama set within the confines of a police call centre.

On that theme, if the next thing you hear about KFF is by phone, you will know that we will have contracted out our marketing to the company in Sorry to Bother You, a biting American satire on race, resistance, capitalism – and telemarketing.

Details of the rest of the festival programme will come to you – by whatever means – in the days to come.

Early Bird Passes, with a saving of £5, are now available from the Theatre By The Lake.

Sorry to have bothered you!

Ian

Early Bird Passes Now Available

Passes are now available for the 2019 Festival at a special early bird rate. This £5 off offer expires on 3rd January, making a festival pass the ideal Christmas present.

Our opening and closing films cannot be more different. We are going to kick off with Jellyfish, a award-winning British movie set in the deep south of England and close with Green Book, a gem of a film from Peter Farrelly, set in the American South. In between those two films we travel all parts of the compass from arid war zones to arctic ice. A particular highlight will be Carl Hunter’s first feature Sometimes Always Never, written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and starring Bill Nighy, Jenny Agutter, Alice Lowe and Sam Riley.

Further details of the film programme will follow very soon and we look forward to seeing you in Keswick in February.

Your Memories of Keswick Film Festival

We would like to hear your memories from previous Festivals so that we can collate them and show just why this fabulous event has endured.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be posing a number of questions but I’d like to start by asking for your favourite introduction or Q&A by one of our Festival guests. Moments such as those are the essential difference between 'going to a Festival' and 'going to the pictures'.

I have two such stand out moments. Frank Cottrell Boyce’s Q&A after the screening of Millions at the 2009 Festival and Greta Scacchi’s birthday quiz after White Mischief in 2017.

We were all charmed by Millions but then Frank’s interaction with the children in the audience was magical; and for Greta to devise a quiz during the screening of White Mischief and offer slices of her birthday cake as prizes made it a truly memorable night.

But there have been so many such occasions – we’d love you to post your memories on our Facebook page, by commenting on this blog post or contacting us in the usual way.

If your memory needs a jog, have a look at our archive pages on the website

Ian Payne

Festival Director

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