Harrogate Film Society has been a sponsor of the Harrogate Film Festival since the Festival was founded four years ago. We have screened films as part of the Festival programme each year and in 2019 and 2020 we part funded the cost of guest speakers Mark Cousins (Film Director and eminent film critic) and Tony Palmer (legendary UK film director of over 100 films) . In 2019 Mark presented his film "The Eyes of Orson Welles" and in March 2020 Tony Palmer spoke eloquently and humorously about the making of " All My Loving" and "All You Need is Love" a ground breaking documentary (inspired by John Lennon) of the history of popular music. Tony also presented "Mighty Good" an episode featuring The Beatles and other luminaries of the 60's and 70's including Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Cream, Leonard Cohen and Muddy Waters. In addition HFS sponsored three screenings at the 2020 Festival - "American Pyscho", "Zama" and "The House That Jack Built".
HFS Festival Features is an initiative from Harrogate Film Society (HFS) and forms part of the 2022 Harrogate Film Festival.
Harrogate Film Festival already runs a highly successful short film competition with entries sourced through FilmFreeway. As a community cinema, Harrogate Film Society supports the Festival by hosting a range of screening events as part of the Festival programme each year, but we want to do more.
HFS Festival Features will comprise a programme of feature length films made available for streaming on the HFS website for short fixed periods during the next few months.
Our members and guests visitors to our website will be asked to rate these films on a number of criteria. These 'audience ratings' will then be used to help the Features Review Panel (FRP) choose the best films to go forward to big screen presentations during the 2022 Harrogate Film Festival. Audience and jury prizes will be awarded during the Festival. New categories may be introduced for awards as appropriate.
HFS Festival Features offers a new 'festival format' that both caters to those film fans who choose to or must watch remotely as well as offering the prospect of big-screen presentations of exciting new material within the 2022 Harrogate Film Festival.
All proceeds from the entry fees are used to either directly support the HFS Festival Features programme or related activities at the Harrogate Film Festival.
Our aim is to host a variety of content showcasing independent feature-length films, from a wide pool of artists, creators and filmmakers. The project will support the Society’s unique and diverse annual film programme by developing a presence via an online competition comprising of the selected films from the submissions received..
The submission window opens on October 17th 2021 with the online screening window running between November 2021 and 31st January . The shortlist of films selected for the Film Festival screenings will be published by February 12th 2022.
Our first competition in 20/21 was experimental and clearly was subject to a range of problems caused by the pandemic. Nonetheless the online programme ran successfully and filmmakers enjoyed the experience as expressed in the testimonials received ..With large and appreciative audiences at four live screenings at the Odeon and Everyman cinemas in Harrogate (with two further screenings scheduled) a comprehensive presentation of all the Festival Features films selected has been achieved. It was also a success for several of the filmmakers who have subsequently secured distribution contracts. We look forward to building on that success in our second year 2021/22. and this will be guaranteed if the quality of the films submitted matches that of the ones submitted in our first year.
Entry to Harrogate Film Festival 2021 for the 6 films chosen in the competition by online viewers and HFS judging panel. Streaming of up to 12 films during the competition period and and a HFS laurel for each award winner.
