The votes have been tallied, and we are thrilled to reveal the final audience scores for the 2026 Festival as determined by our audience ratings.

Once again documentaries have scored highly with Put Your Soul On Your Hand And Walk coming out on top with 90.9% and All And Nothing not far behind with 89.7%. When Life Gives You Lemons...Everyone's Everest and Common Ground both scored 82% and The Shepherd And The Bear 79%.

Our family films went down well with everybody who saw them, resulting in big scores for Kangaroo (90.4%), Bugsy Malone (87%) and Happy Feet (80.9%). The students from Carlisle College picked highly rated modern classics giving There Will Be Blood 90% and Waves 87.9%.

Of the new non-documentaries Sirāt scored the highest with 87.3% followed by The Last Viking (80.6%), DJ Ahmet (80.3%), A Private Life (79.9%) and The President's Cake (79%)  

You can see all of the scores on our website.

Congratulations to all of the short films that were screened at the Theatre By The Lake on Saturday afternoon. What a wonderful selection of shorts showcasing amazing Cumbrian talent spanning genres, themes and styles.

Many thanks to Anwen, Lady Hurt for joining us and presenting the inaugural John Hurt Award for Excellence in Short Filmmaking to Dougal Vecqueray for MRI as voted for by the audience. BLACKPOOL by Stephen Gallacher got the second highest number of votes followed by DEAR HEART by Emily Barnard & Sara Barnes.

The judges prize in the Open Category went to MEAT RAFFLE by Stuart Armstrong, building on his success of winning the Audience Award last year for Lay-By.

The Student Prize was awarded to MRI by Dougal Vecqueray, a wonderful animation made at the Aardman Academy based on his own hospital experiences dealing with a heart condition.

MRI will be screened before the sold out closing film at the Festival on Sunday evening.

Thanks to the team at the Theatre By The Lake for all their hard word getting the films on the big screen.

Missed a highly rated film? Couldn’t get a ticket? Here is your second chance to see the best of the fest, highly rated or sold out screenings. All showing in Alhambra screen 2.

• Sound of Falling, Saturday 21 March, 9pm
• The Secret Agent, Sunday 22 March, 1pm
• The Last Viking, Sunday 22 March, 4pm
• The President’s Cake, Sunday 22 March, 6.30pm

Check out the Ticket Updates for the latest on ticket availability to other titles.

Saving Our Rainforests on Friday at 9pm is sold out, so we’re also showing it at 8.15pm and 9.45pm.