2024 Special Events and Guests

Between The Lights

BAFTA Connect member Michael Groom (director, writer and co-producer) and David Groom (co- producer) set up their Creative-England-supported production company Laal Blue Dot after they both worked for many years in the film industry. They cut their teeth working for Michael Winterbottom and Andrew Eaton at Revolution Films, before working freelance - often on films produced by Plan B (Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner)

Michael also assisted world-class directors; he was the long-time assistant of David Michôd, who directed Animal Kingdom, War Machine and The King; as well as enjoying stints assisting Jean-Marc Vallée, Garth Davis and Matt Shakman.

Michael and David have made short films together that have enjoyed festival success at top-tier festivals all over the world. Michael has always juggled writing with his freelance work, selling his first script to Damian Jones when he was just 24 - a film that was made by Vertigo Films and Protagonist Pictures and was nominated for the Golden Tiger at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. In 2019 Michael was a shortlisted finalist in the BBC Writersroom. In 2022 he was long listed for Netflix's BreakOut scheme. In 2021-23 the brothers partook in the Evolve programme (Creative England / BFI) and in 2022-23 they were part of the Market Trader programme (Creative England / BFI).

Between the Lights is their debut feature film.

Between The Lights
Thursday 29th February 7:00 PM - Alhambra
Saturday 2nd March 11am - Alhambra

Scala!!!

Ali Catterall is an old friend of Keswick film Festival, first coming up here in 2017 as part of the 'Critical Acclaim' critics' forum that year - his film choice, Julia Ducournau's Raw was a genuine late- night horror that would not have been out of place in the programme at The Scala.

Ali is an award-winning writer, journalist, filmmaker, film critic and editor, whose writing has featured in the Guardian, Time Out, GQ, Film4, Word magazine and the Big Issue, among many others.

In 2001, he co-authored Your Face Here: British Cult Movies Since the Sixties, and in 2018 edited Jane Giles' Scala Cinema, 1978-1993 winner of the 2019 Kraszna-Krausz Award - the only award dedicated to books about the moving image. In 2021, he co-authored Kindness (A User's Guide) with Kitty Collins and is working on a memoir about his bizarre childhood.

Scala!!! - Friday 1st March 6:30 PM - Alhambra

Scala!!!

Jane first encountered the Scala as a teenager, after travelling up to London with friends and experiencing an all-nighter that 'included Cronenburg'.

She went on to do an MA in film and wound up on a BFI placement in Regional Film Theatre Management in Ipswich, based at the Corn Exchange. She was there for a year, just learning everything from projection to programming to box office, being paid literally tuppence, but it was fine because she was learning. In the course of that year, she saw a tiny ad the size of a postage stamp in the Guardian with the Scala logo on it that was so familiar to her from going there for several years, and it said 'Programmer Wanted'. She thought "That's my job", applied for it and got it, working there until the very end.

(Taken from an interview in Starburst Magazine Jane Giles | SCALA CINEMA 1978-1993 - STARBURST Magazine)

Jane later wrote Scala Cinema 1978 -93, which forms the basis of the film.

Scala!!! - Friday 1st March 6:30 PM - Alhambra

Saturday 2nd March 2pm - Theatre By The Lake

Our annual celebration of local filmmaking. A selection of short films in the running for one of our prestigious Osprey Short film awards, including an audience award voted for by you.

There'll be more information on the films once the judges have made their selection.