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.

That's a wrap on the 2026 Festival. Thank you for joining us to celebrate a wonderful weekend of the very best international and independent cinema as we welcomed friends, filmmakers and audiences to a feast of film and events at the North West's favourite, friendly film festival.

Your ratings of the films reflect the quality of the 2026 programme.

We couldn’t have done it without you, the audience, our funders and sponsors, and especially our brigade of volunteers.

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.

We are delighted to announce that Anwen, widow of KFF Patron the late Sir John Hurt, will be the guest of honour at this year’s Festival when she presents the Osprey Short Film Awards at the ceremony on Saturday 21 March.

Lady Hurt will present the inaugural John Hurt Award for Excellence in Short Filmmaking along with the Open and Student Awards. Formerly the Audience Award, the John Hurt Award will continue to be voted for by the enthusiastic audience of filmmakers and festival-goers at the ceremony.

Lady Hurt commented: “With a long and varied career, John was a strong advocate for independent film. It’s a personal delight to present the newly named Award in honour of John, a fitting way to remember his passion for helping and inspiring the next generation.”

Ten films have been shortlisted in the 2026 Open and Student categories and feature a diverse array of genres, from charming stop-motion animations and documentaries to bold queer cinema and surrealist student work. The selection takes us on a journey from the delicate ecosystems of the Duddon Estuary to the neon-lit chaos of Blackpool. We see the world through the eyes of red squirrels, young skaters, and even a reanimated postman.

KFF is pleased to be working with KE Adventure to bring the special screening of When Life Gives You Lemons … Everyone’s Everest to this year’s Festival.

For 40 years KE Adventure have been operating active adventure holidays to the world’s most beautiful regions, including the Himalaya where When Life Gives You Lemons … was partially filmed.

If you are inspired to take on the same challenge as Sally, KE Adventure can take you on the Tenzing Hillary Everest Marathon – the world’s highest!