Herne Hill Free Film Festival announces its 2025 festival programme with free screenings of 11 feature films, three short film nights, a film quiz, and the much-loved 48 Hour Film Challenge.
In its 12th year, the festival will run from today 30 April to 23 May, screening at landmark locations across Herne Hill, from the historic Velodrome to Brockwell Lido.
As usual, the festival will showcase local talent, from a night of short films by young Black Londoners, to Herne Hill’s very own Mark Rylance, who closes the festival playing a wannabe champion golfer in The Phantom of the Open.
This year, Hollywood comes to Herne Hill with We Live in Time, starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, which was shot around Herne Hill Station and Brockwell Park.
A highlight of the festival will be an evening of entertainment, including wacky silent movie Hundreds of Beavers,in the newly renovated stables area of Brockwell Hall, giving festival-goers a sneak peek of the swanky £7.7m restoration.
Dates: 30 April to 23 May 2025
Venues: Various locations around Herne Hill, SE24
Tickets: All events are free. No booking required
Full programme: https://freefilmfestivals.org/filmfestival/herne-hill
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Sharpen your wits, swot up on your movie knowledge and get ready for the launch of this year’s Herne Hill Free Film Festival on 30 April with a fabulous Film Quiz! Hosted by Big Ritzy Quiz compère Zoe Maltby, this is the chance for you and your film buff buddies to score points and win big.
As festival regulars know, HHFFF is always boldly pushing frontiers and going where no festival has gone before to bring you its annual selection of feature films, which runs this year from 1 to 23 May. On 7 May, you are in for a special treat, as the screening of wacky silent movie Hundreds of Beavers will form the public launch of the renovated Brockwell Hall, when you’ll get to explore the swish new reception space and courtyard of the old stables. Though beaver costumes are optional, you can get your teeth into some culinary and musical delights.
This year HHFFF has an eclectic array of brilliant features of the kind you wanted to see but may have missed, including the Bob Dylan movie A Complete Unknown, with its outstanding turn by Timothée Chalamet; an equally superlative Saoirse Ronan in The Outrun, an immersive drama set in the Orkneys (showing at the reinvented Whirled Cinema, now named Coldharbour Blue); and, on many a film critic’s top 10 list, Love Lies Bleeding, a neon-soaked, adrenaline-fueled thriller starring Kristen Stewart (screening at the newly expanded Bird House Brewery).
The documentary programme will transport you from the glorious wilds of East Sussex to the musical heart and soul of Brixton. First up, on 1 May, aptly shown in Herne Hill’s own natural paradise of the Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses, the festival presents Wilding, about the magical experiment to let the 400-year-old Knepp Estate return to the wild. On 8 May, there’s a whole different vibe at Off the Cuff, where you’ll rediscover (in Searching for Sugarman style) the familiar jazz, funk, soul and Caribbean grooves of the Brixton-born band Cymande in Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande, followed by a Q&A with the director, Tim MacKenzie-Smith.
Celebrating local is always a key theme of the festival, and so you won’t want to miss the romantic Hollywood weepie that many Herne Hillians glimpsed in the making – We Live in Time, with Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, shot around the neighbourhood, outside the Station and in Brockwell Park. Catch it at Herne Hill Baptist Church on 14 May. Meanwhile, Herne Hill’s very own Mark Rylance closes the festival on 23 May with The Phantom of the Open, where he stars as delusional wannabe champion golfer Maurice Flitcroft, who gatecrashed the 1976 British Open Golf Championship.
In true May Bank Holiday tradition, the Free Film Festival once again offers you SE24’s favourite family activity: the eagerly-awaited 48 Hour Film Challenge. Participants are given a line of dialogue, a prop, a location, and just 48 hours to create a 3-minute short film that will leave SE23 and SE25 residents seething with envy. The clock starts ticking at midday on Saturday 3 May, when filmmakers register at The Prince Regent, only to return exhausted but elated 48 hours later, on Monday 5 May, with their finished film. The always-riveting results will be showcased and winners announced on Sunday 18 May at Station Hall, above Herne Hill Station.
Also showing at Station Hall, on 17 May, is a film for all the family, the Oscar and BAFTA-nominated animation Wild Robot, which will warm the hearts and dampen the eyes of children and adults alike.
HHFFF’s short film fare is bigger and better than ever this year. The Prince Regent will again be bursting with local talent at the ever-popular Short Film Night on 12 May. Over at the Herne Hill Velodrome is the festival’s third set of Cycling Shorts, featuring among others Tour of Tigray, about Ethiopia’s premier cycling event.
New this year, the festival is proud to present at 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning gallery an evening of short films by young Black Londoners, who explore issues that matter to them. The event showcases the work of Bridge the Gap Studios, supporting young people and families through creative therapy and workshops, and The Spit Game, a youth-led platform celebrating Black culture and social justice.
No festival would be complete without an old favourite or two. Enter 21-year-old zomedy Shaun of the Dead, screening outdoors at the Lido (where Zombie costumes may be worn – just spare a thought for unsuspecting mortals as you wander back through the Park at night). Finally, in a first for the much-loved outdoor screening at the historic Velodrome, it’s your chance to choose the feature – voting is online at https://take.supersurvey.com/poll5450666x4acc99eA-162 for Stand By Me, Galaxy Quest or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Over to you: will it be friendships, spaceships or relationships?
For more information, please visit https://freefilmfestivals.org/filmfestival/herne-hill, and follow HHFFF on social media for updates:
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Instagram @hhfreefilmfest
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