Take your seats for the New Forest Film Festival

NINE days of film celebration start rolling in the New Forest on Saturday with everything from family musicals and award-winning animation to ballet and horror.

The New Forest Film Festival runs from 8th to 16th June across 20 venues, and offers an eclectic mix of competitions, conventions, awards, quizzes, workshops, Q&As and drive-ins alongside the film screenings.

And horror fans have a whole evening dedicated to the genre.

The festival, run by Film:New Forest, kicks off with New Forest ComicCon at Brockenhurst College, featuring appearances by Chris Rankin, who played Percy Weasley in the Harry Potter films; animatronic designer Tim Berry, who worked on the latest Star Wars films; and R2D2 designer Lee Towersey.

After screenings of Mary Poppins Returns, Vice, and Stan & Ollie at Fordingbridge’s Regal Cinema, the college will host the festival’s awards ceremony featuring leading UK film critic Mark Kermode as head judge.

An evening of horror follows on June 9th at Sway Cinema, with award-winning short films Treaters and Top Dog, along with a sci-fi double feature of 1985’s Lifeforce and Ken Russell’s 1980 classic Altered States.

There will be Q&As with Ken Russell’s wife Lisi Tribble Russell, actor Nicholas Ball (Lifeforce, EastEnders, Footballer’s Wives, Hazell), producer Chris Musselwhite and writer-director Peter Stanley-Ward.

These will be hosted by Lymington director Keith English who brought to life the Jo Brand-penned feature The More You Ignore Me, released last year.

Over the course of the festival will be three film quizzes, workshops on film making, writing, marketing and networking; Q&As alongside screenings of Dead Fred, The More You Ignore Me, Calendaw Girls and New Forest: A Year in the Wild Wood; and drive-in showings of Back to the Future, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Greatest Showman (sing-along), Jurassic Park, Grease (sing-along), Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman.

For a full list of events, visit www.newforestfilmfestival.com/events/.