Britain’s biggest rural film festival kicks off next week, bringing acclaimed movies to a host of venues across south Shropshire and The Marches.

Borderlines Film Festival will be showing 70 different films over 18 days, with a total of 150 screenings in village halls and arts centres.

All Stretton, Bedstone, Bishop’s Castle, Bodenham, Leominster, Ludlow, Much Wenlock, Presteigne, Pudleston, and Tenbury Wells will all be showing movies as part of the festival, which runs from March 19 to April 5.

Among the highlights this year is Pete Postlethwaite’s visit to Ludlow Assembly Rooms, where he will introduce his new climate-change documentary, The Age Of Stupid, on March 31.

Oscar-winning director James Marsh has also promised to make the screening of his Man On Wire in the parish hall at Dorstone, near Hay-on-Wye, on April 4.

As well as screening other Oscar-winning films such as The Reader, Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and Sean Penn in Milk, Borderlines presents the English premieres of Madrigal and Tit—n from Havana to Guantanermera together with the Argentinian El Nindo Vac’o (The Empty Nest).

Borderlines has won a army of celebrity fans over past years. Comic Jo Brand described it as a “great festival,” veteran film critic Barry Norman found it to be “beautifully balanced”, and Monty Python’s Terry Jones said it was “better than staying in with the telly”.

Last year’s Borderlines audience topped the 10,000 mark, and Becky Griffiths from Bishop’s Castle was one of them. She said: “Our nearest cinema is 30 miles away – you can’t get to see a film around here unless you’ve got a car.”

To ensure a good turnout for the Bishop’s Castle screening of Caramel, Nadine Labaki’s film of life in a Lebanese beauty salon, on March 20, Shrewsbury belly dancer Judy Tree has been booked to run a pre-film workshop.

Festival producer Naomi Vera-Sanso, from Leintwardine, says this year’s Borderlines Festival is bigger than ever, thanks to Shropshire.

“There’s been a lot of new interest from communities around the county,” she says.

“And as well as screening some of this year’s Oscar winners, we’ve chosen a few films such as A Bunch of Amateurs, which are certain to blow away the recession blues.”

* For full programme details, log on to the Borderlines Film Festival website

By Carl Jones