Guests: Karen Guthrie

The Closer We Get - Saturday 4pm, Theatre

Karen was raised on the West coast of Scotland and now lives on a smallholding in the rural Lake District. She met co-producer and Director of Photography Nina Pope whilst students at Edinburgh College of Art and they have since worked together on many creative projects and commissions. Together they founded Somewhere in 2002 and have undertaken art commissions from the likes of Tate Modern and Cambridge University alongside their three feature documentaries: Jaywick Escapes, Living with the Tudors and Bataville:We Are Not Afraid of the Future.

The Closer We Get is Karen's solo directorial debut.

Guests: Helen Walsh

The Violators - Friday 6pm, Alhambra

Hailing from Warrington, Helen Walsh is an award-winning author (her first novel, Brass, won the Betty Trask award and her second, Once upon a Time in England, won a Somerset Maugham award) who has turned her considerable talents to screenwriting and directing. The Violators is her debut feature set in a grim Cheshire housing estate. Described as "a visceral and powerful debut film with more than a few twists along the way" it too has been nominated for many awards on the European Festival circuit.

Guests: Tony Britten

Chicklit - Thursday 7pm, Alhambra

We welcome Tony Britten back to Keswick where this year he achieves the singular honour of opening the Festival for the second time. In Love with Alma Cogan charmed audiences in 2012 and Tony returned the following year, with both film and cast of Peace and Conflict, his feature about the life of Benjamin Britten. Tony is a prolific composer and arranger of film, opera and theatre music and being a serious jazz fan may share some insights into our Jazz theme this year.

Accommodation, Penrith Events and Travel News

There are some great hotel deals after half-term. If you are living in Cumbria you can stay in the lovely hostel in Borrowdale, Barrow House, half price, subsidised by the Flood Fund. Or Denton House is in the town and has vacancies throughout the Festival. Unfortunately the YHA hostel is closed after flooding.

We are having some activities in Penrith too this year. The Soup Shop in the Devonshire Arcade is hosting events on Friday and Saturday. We will be showing the short films there and Blue Jam will have a childrens' orchestra there on Saturday morning.

Transport is improving and buses are running along the 591 through Dunmail Raise now. The Virgin Trains offer continues with 30% off Advance Off-Peak fares.

Trailers

Can't decide what to see at the festival, here are trailers for most of the films:

Special Festival deals for Accommodation and Car Parking

We are pleased to announce that the Lake District Hotels Group is offering a tremendous deal with special rates for Festival goers in its various establishments in and around Keswick, including the Inn on the Square, The Skiddaw, The Kings Arms, The Lodore and The Borrowdale. Festival goers booking via this link will also be eligible for discounts on Festival Passes and individual tickets.

Use this special link to book your accommodation – rooms are allocated on a 'best available' basis.

Allerdale Borough Council has also offered a special deal on car parking passes for the weekend of the Festival. Passes costing £5 will be available to purchase at the Alhambra and the Theatre by the Lake and will be valid from Friday 26th to Sunday 28th February.

Thanks to both partners, Lake District Hotels Group and Allerdale Borough Council – Keswick is Open for Business!

Crossing Continents

For a fully immersive experience at the festival, how about trying our world tour?

Your tour starts on Friday with The Wonders, a delightful Italian film where the routine of a rural family is disrupted by two intruders. Fly west in the afternoon, to Brazil for The Second Mother, concerning the tensions faced by a housekeeper as her family interacts with that of her employers.

East again to France for Polisse, a gripping police procedural and your day is complete with Life in a Fishbowl, an Icelandic film about the inter-connected tales of 3 people as the banking crash looms.

Saturday starts in India with the lunchtime showing of Court, a drama that highlights the absurdities of the judicial system. A choice in the afternoon. Whether to go to Scotland, for the documentary The Closer We Get, described as 'an astonishing story of broken dreams, loyalty and perhaps redemption' from the Memory strand  or to Japan for Still the Water, a coming of age drama on a subtropical island. Stay in the far east in the evening for The Assassin, a visually stunning martial arts drama set in China and then as a seasoned traveller, you will have built up your endurance for one last film. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night from Iran is our late night frightener.

Sunday morning. Stay in Iran for the first leg of a Tom Allen double bill - Karun, charts his journey along that river and the cultural and physical challenges he faces. That's followed by The Last Explorers on the Rio Santa Cruz, his trip along a river under threat from dambuilding in Patagonia. You can swap travellers' tales with Tom after the film at his Q&A.

After Dukhtar from Pakistan there will be just time to catch The Wolfpack, the amazing New York story of 7 siblings hidden from society and who know the world outside only through film. And what better way to finish, than seeing patron Sir John Hurt in AKA Nadia from Israel, where a woman’s hidden past come back to haunt her?

3 days, 13 countries, 14 films, zero carbon footprint, what better way to travel?