Fisheye Film Festival launches Thursday 18 April at BNU

High Wycombe’s own International Fisheye Film Festival is about to launch its eighth season of bringing “the world of films to our screens”. 

Hosted predominantly on Buckinghamshire New University's High Wycombe Campus, this year's Fisheye event will run between Thursday 18 and Saturday 27 April, and is staging more events than ever in 2024. Around 90 high-quality titles have been selected, representing the best of over 200 films submitted to its seventh International Film Competition by filmmakers from our local area, the rest of the UK and 26 other countries. 

Films have been curated into themed showcases featuring a variety of genres ranging from drama, documentary, and a ‘Fright Fest’ of bite-sized horror films, through dance, music, art, and a special session featuring the work of talented emerging filmmakers. 

Festival events are open to the public, giving audiences a fantastic opportunity to discover this new world of films. There’s something for everyone in the programme which can be explored via this link.

For those who prefer a feature-length film, we are screening two documentaries ; one is for those with an environmental interest, called Pure Clean Water (dir. Tony Eva) about chalk streams, also relevant to our locality;

the other is one about experiencing mixed race heritage, called That Great British Documentary (dir. Joan Hillery) which was aired on the BBC last year. 

And on Friday 26 in the evening, we will screen a feel-good drama feature – ‘All Roads Lead to Home’ (dir. Darren Scott), an entertaining musical odyssey filmed in the UK.

Many of the screenings will be followed by Q&A sessions with the filmmakers themselves, offering a glimpse 'behind-the-scenes' and a chance to network with up-and-coming and award-winning filmmakers and others involved in the industry.

The festival will culminate on Saturday 27 April with its awards ceremony, when those films judged by Fisheye’s jury of experts (including the University's Dr Fil Ieropoulos and Dr Tom McGorrian) to be winners including Best Short Film, Best UK Short Film, Best International Short Film, Best Screenplay and Best Director, will be celebrated.

For those unable to attend in person, many of the films will be available through virtual screenings on the eoFlix platform.