A rural film festival running 295 screenings across the West Midlands and Wales will come to Malvern in March.

The Borderlines Film Festival, supported by the BFI, awarding funds from the National Lottery, will run from March 1 to 17, with tickets and passes available from 10am on Friday, January 26.

The UK’s largest rural film festival will offer screenings at 24 locations, including Malvern Theatres, over 17 days.

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Not only will the festival showcase traditional cinemas like Malvern Theatres, it will extend to community arts centres and several smaller venues embedded in the countryside, reaching audiences far from standard cinemagoers.

The festival director, Naomi Vera-Sanso, said: "This year, we have multiple films in our programme that focus on people throughout the world who cross borders to seek refuge and a better life.

"Films like Io Capitano, Bye Bye Tiberias, Shayda, Norwegian Wood and the powerful, but rarely seen Syrian classic, The Dupes.

"We are proud to be able to show films that represent a variety of cultural experiences and are told from a different viewpoint from our own."

The festival welcomes major prize-winning independent films from renowned international festivals, many yet to be screened in the UK.

Notably, the 2023 Palme d'Or winner 'Anatomy of a Fall', 'Evil Does Not Exist', which scooped the Best Film award at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival, and 'Disco Boy', the Silver Bear winner at the 2023 Berlinale, are part of this year's film roster.

The festival has added some exciting new features directed by celebrated filmmakers for this year's programme.

Included are Nuri Bilge Ceylan's 'About Dry Grasses' from Turkey, Alice Rohrwacher's 'La Chimera' from Italy, and a new film 'Monster' from festival favourite Hirokazu Kore-eda from Japan.

A third of the titles in the festival are directed and/or written by women, and the festival continues to use F-Rated badging to highlight their work.

Vera-Sanso thanks all those who play the National Lottery, saying: "Without your support, a film festival of this scale, ambition and reach would be impossible to mount."

Full details of the festival's extensive programme will be available from the Borderlines website from the fourth week in January.