Kingston International Film Festival

It’s been an extraordinary journey bringing The Kingston International Film Festival to town this month.

What began as an online festival dreamed up by Kingston University film students over lockdown has burgeoned into a three-day programme with 99 events at venues across town including Rose Theatre, The Townhouse and the Odeon from 24-26 June backed by Four Weddings/Harry Potter director Mike Newell, Dougray Scott and Vanessa Redgrave.

Entries have flooded in from all round the world for this inaugural event. Alongside features, shorts, and documentaries in competition, we are screening Jules Dessin’s noir thriller Night in the City and the original Animal Farm, as well as a charity Gala of Ukraine-set The English Surgeon described by the New York Times as “enthralling, astonishing and agonizingly human”, with neurosurgeon Henry Marsh (author of Do No Harm) joining us in person. (Sunday 26^th, 4.30pm, The Rose)

With Q&As with Mike Newell, Harrison Ford’s stunt-double Vic Armstrong and Manga founder Andy Frain, composing workshops and pitching sessions, as well as a glamorous closing awards ceremony and party, it has all the makings of a brilliant festival, and what better place for it than Kingston upon Thames with its restaurants, bars, pubs and stunning river-side setting.

It’s a lot of work for a small team of local film-makers who have brought it together- driven by the brilliant Kingston film students and festival director David Cunningham. But with the Royal Borough of Kingston, Kingston First, the Rose Theatre and Kingston University behind it, along with our very own studio in the Rotunda, we are all so excited to bring this festival to town.

Perhaps for a weekend, Kingston will become Surrey’s very own “Cannes on Thames”!

KINGSTON INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 24-26 JUNE 2022

To see the full programme and book your tickets, visit Kiffest. Or book direct at:

https://rosetheatre.org/whats-on/kingston-international-film-festival