Debut celebration of wealth of Sussex film-making

Running from April 25-27 at the Depot Cinema in Lewes, the festival celebrates the creativity and craft of film-makers working in, around, and inspired by the region.

Tickets are on sale now: https://madeinsussex.org

This year’s feature film line-up includes six stand-out titles: Finally Nearly Getting There, where two strangers on a car share to a wedding find unexpected connection and the possibility of change; The Forest in Me, a reflection on uncertainty, love and human connection; Splinter, a portrait of grief, isolation and the terror of being watched by something unseen; Leave No Trace Brighton, a documentary about a volunteer-led group fighting coastal waste and exposing the impact of commercial fishing; The Captain, in which a retired sea captain under house arrest forms an unlikely friendship with his Greek caregiver; and Fright, an homage to 1950s horror cinema, where a young woman haunted by a sinister black hand teeters on the edge of madness inside a gothic mansion.

The shorts includes The Dog in the Long Grass, First Sight and Just Plain Ben, each offering fresh perspectives on personal change and connection. Also screening are Market Values, Women's Voices, Messiah, Mirror Mirror, Nocturnal, Shouting at the Sea, Travels at Home, The Waiter, The Scientist and Jenny and Wired.

Chris Collier, CEO of Film Sussex, said: “The festival came about through a conversation with Carmen at the Depot in Lewes. I went there to talk to them about some work that we were going to do with them in partnership, some training work, and at the end of the conversation, I just mentioned that I thought maybe we were missing a film festival in the area. And I didn't really expect much of a response, but clearly Carmen had been thinking about it herself. And she said ‘Well, what about if we put together a film festival that was just about films made in Sussex or made by Sussex film-makers.’ And I said ‘OK, have you got a title for this?’ and she said ‘Made in Sussex.’

“And on that day, we decided they were films that either had a very strong Sussex connection or they were made very definitely in Sussex or they were made by a Sussex film-maker. Obviously, that part really fits in with what Film Sussex does to try and support film-makers.

“Sussex is a great place to make films. It's obviously got some incredible sights. It's got the sea, the beautiful Downs, the historic towns. There are so many places in Sussex that you can shoot. And there's also an incredible wealth of talented film-makers that you can work with. A lot of the work that we do is about networking those film-makers or supporting film-makers to find other film-makers and maybe get past some of the barriers they've got to film-making. But yes, there's already a really strong community here. And we had hundreds of entries to the film festival.

“I'm hoping that as we go on each year, we'll get more and more entries as we become more and more well-known. We're obviously hoping that the film-makers from this festival, those that win awards, are able to go on and make films in Sussex.

“We had a huge number of entries, but we'd really like to see more feature film entries. We had quite a few, but we'd really like to encourage feature-film filming in Sussex.”