David Farnor | On 15, May 2021

The Cheltenham International Film Festival is returning this spring for its 2021 edition – and it’s one again going online after last year’s digital event.

Running from 24th May to 5th June, the full programme presents 34 films from around the world, including 14 UK premieres and 11 previews. The official Film Festival competition to select Best Film and Emerging Director, will be judged by a respected jury of film and media personalties chaired by Anna Smith, Chair of the London Film Critics’ Circle.

Opening with a preview of Oscar winner The Father and closing with a preview of an adaptation of Steven Berkoff’s comedy play Brighton, the festival also marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Stephen Frears debut feature film Gumshoe. In an exclusive interview, Stephen talks about Gumshoe and his long and prolific career as one of the UK’s most respected film makers. Other interviews during the festival include Aneil Karia, director of the thriller Surge, Wet Season director, Anthony Chen, Michael Bentham, director of Disclosure and the Director of Brighton, Stephen Cookson along with cast members Larry Lamb and Marion Bailey.

The full programme is now on sale with tickets costing £9.99 per film – although they are available at the early bird price of £7.99 each until midnight on 23rd May. A festival pass is also available, offering five films for £32 (with an early bird price of £25).

Films are available for a limited window each. Once purchased, you have 28 days to begin watching your film. Once you have begun watching, you have 48 hours to finish viewing your film. Films can only be watched in the UK.

Here’s the festival trailer – or read on for the full line-up of films.

THE FATHER

May 24, 7:00 PM

Buy until: May 26, 7:00 PM

A man in the grip of dementia refuses all offers of help from his loved ones as his understanding of reality ebbs away.

DISCLOSURE

May 25, 6:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 1, 6:00 PM

Two couples chat beside a suburban pool, but the unease mounts as they turn to a recent incident involving their young kids.

SURGE

May 25, 7:00 PM

Buy until: May 28, 7:00 PM

A stripped-back thriller about a man who goes on a reckless journey of self-liberation over 24 hours in London.

THE SWORDSMAN

May 25, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 1, 7:00PM

An ailing swordsman must persevere in his bloody craft to win back his kidnapped daughter before his eyesight fails.

OSKAR AND LILLI: WHERE NO ONE KNOWS US

May 25, 8:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 1, 8:00 PM

Two young Chechen refugees tolerate life with foster carers before trying to reunite with their mother.

I NEVER CRY

May 26, 6:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 2, 6:00 PM

A young Polish girl travels to Ireland to recover the body of her father, long estranged from the family back home.

HOW TO BE A GOOD WIFE

May 26, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 2, 7:00 PM

A dutiful wife rises up, inspired by the Spirit of May ’68 and by the secret her dead husband bequeaths her.

A TALE OF THREE SISTERS

May 26, 8:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 2, 8:00 PM

Three sisters compete for a chance to escape the isolation of their Anatolian village with a wealthy big city benefactor.

THE ATLANTIC CITY STORY

May 27, 6:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 6, 6:00 PM

Hitting Atlantic City, Jane forms an unlikely bond with a young gambler. But she can’t run from her marriage forever.

THE GARDEN LEFT BEHIND

May 27, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 3, 7:00 PM

Tina, a Mexican trans woman, lives a precarious undocumented life in NYC with her grandmother.

DINNER IN AMERICA

May 27, 8:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 3, 8:00 PM

A victimised girl and an anarchic punk with a penchant for pyromania form an unlikely couple in this misfit romance.

WET SEASON

May 28, 6:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 4, 6:00 PM

In Singapore, teacher Ling becomes the object of an infatuation when she takes one of her students under her wing.

INTO DAD’S WOODS

May 28, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 4, 7:00 PM

Gina, 15, struggles with the mental disintegration of her beloved and eccentric nature-loving father.

THE NIGHT OF THE BEAST

May 28, 8:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 4, 8:00 PM

Iron Maiden, Bogota, 1980. A dream come true for two young metalheads who are determined to see the band.

WHAT YOU DON”T KNOW ABOUT ME

May 29, 6:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 5, 6:00 PM

Two people with secrets and from very different backgrounds make an unlikely marriage, something neither was seeking.

WINONA

May 29, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 8, 7:00 PM

Four young women gambol on a beach. A day of play for close friends it seems, but there’s a reason they’re here.

MATING

May 29, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 5, 7:00 PM

Two Swedish millennials offer up a year of their lives to the camera as they online-date and a romance blossoms.

UNIDENTIFIED

May 29, 8:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 5, 8:00 PM

A labyrinthine police thriller in which a flawed but determined detective (yes, one of those) begins to seem ever more flawed.

ARISTOCRATS

May 30, 6:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 6, 6:00 PM

Two young women, struggling to follow their own destinies against class-defined expectations, form an unlikely friendship.

MY WONDERFUL WANDA

May 30, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 6, 7:00 PM

Young Polish live-in carer Wanda brings joy and havoc to the lakeside villa of an affluent Swiss family.

SISTERS APART

May 30, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 6, 2021 7:00 PM

Rojda, a Kurdish member of the German Bundeswehr, sets out to reunite her family, dispersed by Middle Eastern wars.

EDEN

May 30, 8:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 6, 8:00 PM

Three teenagers, one clever, one confident and one timid, come under the influence of a slightly older religious zealot at a religious summer camp.

THE OUTSIDE STORY

May 31, 6:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 8, 6:00 PM

Locked out of his apartment, Charles sees there’s more to life as he’s suddenly dependent upon his long-ignored neighbours.

OUT IN THE OPEN

May 31, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 8, 7:00 PM

A young boy escapes a tyrannical household and is helped in his flight across a sun-baked Andalusian terrain by a world-weary shepherd.

NIGHT OF THE KINGS

May 31, 8:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 8, 8:00 PM

In a bid to save his life, young prison inmate Roman weaves a tall tale about the rise and fall of a notorious gang leader.

SWEET THING

June 01, 6:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 8, 6:00 PM

Two young siblings set out on the road with a friend to escape their dysfunctional family life.

MADLY IN LIFE

June 01, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 8, 7:00 PM

Alex and Noémie want a child, a wish both denied and oddly fulfilled when his mother develops a neuro-degenerative disease.

OLIVER SACKS

June 01, 8:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 8, 8:00 PM

The life of the sometime hedonist, pioneering neurologist and celebrated author of ‘The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat’.

KUBRICK BY KUBRICK

June 02, 6:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 9, 6:00 PM

A revealing and beautifully constructed documentary based on a rare interviews master director Stanley Kubrick gave in 1980.

FATHER/OTAC

June 02, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 9, 7:00 PM

This unique road movie sees a determined father trek from his village home to the Serbian capital Belgrade to protest the removal of his children.

UNDER THE STARS OF PARIS

June 02, 8:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 9, 8:00 PM

A homeless Parisienne and an 8-yr-old Burkinabé boy scour the streets of the city in search of the boy’s absent mother.

HIGH GROUND

June 03, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 6, 7:00 PM

Sole survivor as a child of a massacre, 12 years on Gutjuk is enrolled in the hunt for a violent Aboriginal warrior.

BRIGHTON

June 04, 7:00 PM

Buy until: Jun 11, 7:00 PM

Two British working-class couples return to Brighton after 40 years and struggle to accept changes in society and themselves.

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