Popular festival returns to showcase best of city filmmaking

The Wolverhampton Film Festival will bring film makers from across the country together for a weekend of screenings, seminars and workshops, culminating in an awards ceremony celebrating the best in film.

It will be the third year of the festival and will take place at the Wolverhampton Screen School, which is part of Wolverhampton University, from May 3 to May 5.

Arun Kapur has been organising the festival alongside Gurjant Singh since the first festival in 2021 and said they wanted to bring in people from across the film industry to share their own ideas and experiences.

He said: "What we do with the festival is get people who are in the industry and have high experience to come in and talk about what they do, such as a filmmaker from Birmingham called Daniel Alexander.

"He is one of the top names in Birmingham, so this festival is an opportunity for people to come and learn and have Daniel's experience of film.

"The festival allows people to come in and learn about all areas, such as production, what you see visually and you get to understand how these things are made and all different types of things within the industry."

The festival was previewed as part of the Wolverhampton Literature Festival, with a showcase of films from film makers in the city, something Mr Kapur said was great as it showcased Wolverhampton as a filming location.

He said: “The whole essence of this event and of the film festival is to amplify Wolverhampton as a filmmaking city and to be able to amplify what can be utilised within the city in the buildings and the countryside.

“There’s a mixture of everything as you’ve got a bit of old school and it covers everything that you would need as a filmmaker.”

The festival, as the name describes, is all about films and there will be a full showcase of films available to view, including music videos, documentaries, animations, micro shorts and short films, with groups such as Create Central and Maddog holding networking evenings.

The culmination of the weekend will be the awards ceremony, with categories such as best screenplay, best music video, best female and male actor, best hair & make up and the Wolf Award for the best film overall.

This will be judged by people from across the film industry, including screenwriter Rob Ayling, Birmingham Young Film Network founder Cassie Smyth, animator Sam O'Leary, film lecturer Russell Prior and director Ravi Chopra.

Mr Kapur said the ultimate aim of the festival was to unite people together in the name of film and to showcase Wolverhampton.

He said: "For all these years, we have been promoting the city of Wolverhampton and promoting film makers alike from within the city and across all the regions.

"It's about having that platform that's accessible for everybody, whether they are established, senior film makers or are just starting out."

All screenings during the festival will be free, while a charge will be in place for the awards ceremony on May 5.

To find out more, go to facebook.com/wtonfilmfestival/