The Pennine Film Festival is an annual festival started in 2006 focusing on independent filmmaking, offering local and national premieres, hosting masterclasses, workshops and discussions for filmmakers from the enthusiast to the professional. The Film Festival is an established exhibitor and all-round film education resource for the growing independent film movement in England's North West region.

History

The Pennine Film Festival was founded initially as a local student film competition hosted at Accrington & Rossendale College In 2006; over the past decade the competition received a significant amount of entries, and consequently developing into a larger festival holding events outside the college campus.

Format

The Pennine Film Festival is held annually between March and May every year. It primarily takes place in

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

across various venues within the county. These include cinemas, outdoor public spaces, galleries and theatres, offering filmmakers an opportunity to see their films on a big screen and to network with other creatives.

Previous Events

In recent years, the festival offered events to complement a screening of a

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

, most commonly a Q&A with a filmmaker or an expert within the field of the films theme. Previous speakers include

Get Carter ''Get Carter'' is a 1971 British crime film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detecti ...

director

Mike Hodges Michael Tommy Hodges (29 July 1932 – 17 December 2022) was a British screenwriter, film and television director, playwright and novelist. His films as writer/director include ''Get Carter'' (1971), ''Pulp'' (1972), '' The Terminal Man'' (197 ...

The Pennine Film Festival also contributed to the Accrington Food & Drink Festival with an evening screening of the award-winning

Sideways ''Sideways'' is a 2004 American comedy-drama road film directed by Alexander Payne and written by Jim Taylor and Payne. A film adaptation of Rex Pickett's 2004 novel of the same name, ''Sideways'' follows two men in their forties, Miles Raymo ...

with a selection of

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

and cheese tasting at The Ballroom at

Accrington Town Hall Accrington Town Hall is a municipal building in Blackburn Road, Accrington, Lancashire, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Accrington Borough Council, is a grade II* listed building. History The building was originally commis ...

. Previous participants also include directors

Alex Cox Alexander B. H. Cox (born 15 December 1954) is an English film director, screenwriter, actor, non-fiction author and broadcaster. Cox experienced success early in his career with '' Repo Man'' and ''Sid and Nancy'', but since the release and co ...

, Chris Bernard,

Phil Hawkins Phil Hawkins (born December 26, 1984) is a commercial, television and independent film director from Manchester, United Kingdom. His work in feature film includes ''The Women Of Troy'' (2006) and Philip Pullman's '' The Butterfly Tattoo'' (2008) ...

and actors

Lee Ingleby Lee David Ingleby (born 28 January 1976) is an English film, television and stage actor. He is best known for his roles as Detective Sergeant/Detective Inspector John Bacchus in the BBC drama '' Inspector George Gently'', as Stan Shunpike in ...

and

Margi Clarke Margi Clarke (born 25 May 1954) is an English actress and radio and television presenter. She had a leading role in the film ''Letter to Brezhnev'' (1985), a low-budget film which had an international release. Later, Clarke played Jackie Dobbs ...

Call for Entries

The Pennine Film Festival uses the FilmFreeway platform and is open for entries immediately after the end of the current running festival, welcoming film submissions from emerging and established filmmakers from around the world. Pennine accepts films with a maximum running time of 30 minutes awarding the best submitted film in various categories including: animation, documentary,

narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional ( fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc. ...

, local, horror and student.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Pennine Film Festival WebsiteSubmissions Website
Film festivals in England Festivals in Lancashire Short film festivals in the United Kingdom