Making Eastbourne the Cannes of the Sussex coast

The Crossing The Screen International Film Festival is certainly making a decent start as it reaches its seventh edition, with the promise of around 80 films being shown. It will be held at The Grove Theatre in Eastbourne from March 3-5. The launch is on Friday, March 3 from 8pm. www.crossingthescreen.org.

“The film festival has a hybrid form with a live screening programme at The Grove Theatre and with a collection of films screened online as well. Media students from East Sussex College Group have been helping us delivering a film trailer for the festival, posters and social media. They will also volunteer at the event together with students from Bader College/Queen’s University based at Herstmonceux Castle. During the film festival we will deliver two free film-making workshops run by two young film directors from Sussex. It is a very exciting time and despite the low budget available, the festival is back again stronger than ever with more connections with the local community and partnership work across the town of Eastbourne and the surroundings. The festival exists to give emerging film makers the opportunity to showcase their work. It's like a first stepping stone into the film industry. One of our taglines is to make it the Cannes of the Sussex Riviera. We've got big ambitions. It's very hard to get going as an independent film-maker and this is to help people. The festival is well established on the film festival circuit. It is known by people and by a lot of film makers. It is hard because Eastbourne is a town where things happen at quite a slow pace for new cutting-edge ideas but I think it's coming to the fore now and things are happening. It is a bit like a renaissance that is happening now. We have got about 80 films, a real mixed bag of short films and feature films and animation and experimental, a big range of different things. And we've got a good range of Sussex film makers as well. I would say that probably ten to 12 of the films are made by film directors from Sussex.”

It has had interest from around the world: “We have a lot of films from all over Europe and America and we've got a very strong presence from the Middle East and also from Australia and Canada. The UK is very strong as well.”