The Cambridge Film Festival is one of the biggest film festivals in the UK. The festival historically took place during early July, but now takes place annually during September (13–-23 in 2012) in Cambridge.
Established in 1977 and re-launched in 2001, the Cambridge Film Festival is renowned for showing an international selection of films that have debuted at category ‘A’ film festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival and Berlin Film Festival, alongside a broad range of specialist interest sidebars. The Festival is also notable for its accessibility – all films are open to the public to watch.
Typically in recent years the sidebars have included an older archive retrospective and a more recent independent section. For example in 2005 the Festival showed a retrospective of the works of Soviet documentary maker Dziga Vertov alongside a season of a Studio Ghibli films.
The Festival takes place in Cambridge’s three-screened Arts Picturehouse, a local arts cinema run by City Screen. Since 2005 the Festival has expanded to other venues in addition, which have included the nearby Cambridge Cineworld multiplex, arts venue The Junction, and Sawston Cinema. Some special outdoor screenings are held each year, shown on an inflatable screen. The festival also has touring events across the Eastern region of England including Norwich, Ipswich and Ely. Notably in 2006 the Festival held an outdoors screening of A Cock and Bull Story at Felbrigg Hall, one of that film’s shooting locations.
In 2006 the Cambridge Film Trust was launched, a new charity aiming to support and promote the film festival and film culture in Cambridge.
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“Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It’s another part of the twentieth-century mind. It’s the world seen from inside. We’ve come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film.... You have to ask yourself if there’s anything about us more important than the fact that we’re constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves.”
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