{"id":375,"date":"2013-02-18T13:46:44","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T13:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chesterfilmfans.co.uk\/?page_id=375"},"modified":"2026-05-20T12:18:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T11:18:50","slug":"film-festival","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/?page_id=375","title":{"rendered":"Chester International Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <strong>Chester International Film Festival<\/strong> began life as the Chester Film Festival in 1977 and was held in various community venues around Chester. <br>Since 2018 it has been hosted by Storyhouse, initially in partnership with Edge Hill University. Since 2025, the festival has been a collaboration between Storyhouse, Chester Film Society and the University of Chester, with additional sponsorship for the receptions by <a href=\"http:\/\/houseofvain.co.uk\/\">Vain<\/a>.<br><br><strong>Chester International Film Festival 2026<\/strong><br>The 2026 Festival took place at Storyhouse between Friday 13th March to Sunday 22nd March 2026.<br>The winner of the <strong>Audience Award<\/strong> <strong>for Best Feature<\/strong>  was <strong>Colours of Time<\/strong><br>The <strong>Leaping Boar Award<\/strong>  for best short animation went to joint winners <strong>Cell Buddies<\/strong> by Studio Brute Beesten (Netherlands) and <strong>Small Hours<\/strong> by Oscar Wyndham Lewis (UK)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.storyhouse.com\/seasons\/ciff26\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CIFF-2026-1920x1080px.jpg?resize=1080%2C608&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4093\" style=\"width:429px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CIFF-2026-1920x1080px.jpg?w=1080&amp;ssl=1 1080w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CIFF-2026-1920x1080px.jpg?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CIFF-2026-1920x1080px.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CIFF-2026-1920x1080px.jpg?resize=768%2C432&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For all the details of the films shown, go to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.storyhouse.com\/seasons\/ciff26\/\">Storyhouse web page<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Previous Festivals<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Chester International Film Festival 2025<\/strong><br>The<a href=\"https:\/\/www.storyhouse.com\/seasons\/ciff25\/\"> 2025 Chester International Film Festival<\/a> ran from 21st March to 3rd April 2025 at Storyhouse, produced in partnership with the&nbsp;<strong>University of Chester<\/strong>, and&nbsp;<strong>Storyhouse<\/strong>.&nbsp;Opening and closing receptions with thanks to&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/houseofvain.co.uk\/\">VAIN<\/a><\/strong>.<br>The winner of the <strong>Audience Award<\/strong> for 2025 was <strong>Four Mothers<\/strong>.<br>The <strong>Chester Animation Festival Audience Award<\/strong> went to <strong>The Pearl (Let&#8217;s make peace)<\/strong> by Abdollah Alimorad from Iran<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Chester International Film Festival 2024<\/strong><br>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/?page_id=3352\">2024 Chester International Film Festival<\/a> took place from 1st March to 8th March 2024. <br>The winner of the Audience Award for 2024 was <strong>Green Border<\/strong><br>The Chester Animation Festival Audience Award went to <strong>The Curse of Dracular<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/?page_id=3504\">See our Archive pages for more information on past festivals<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Partners and Sponsors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Partners-logos.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"779\" height=\"142\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Partners-logos.jpg?resize=779%2C142&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3358\" style=\"width:452px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Partners-logos.jpg?w=779&amp;ssl=1 779w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Partners-logos.jpg?resize=300%2C55&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Partners-logos.jpg?resize=768%2C140&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 779px) 100vw, 779px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chester International Film Festival began life as the Chester Film Festival in 1977 and was held in various community venues around Chester. Since 2018 it has been hosted by Storyhouse, initially in partnership with Edge Hill University. Since 2025, <span class=\"excerpt-dots\">&hellip;<\/span> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/?page_id=375\"><span class=\"more-msg\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":60,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-375","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":95,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4340,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/375\/revisions\/4340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesterfilmsociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}