After its outstanding success last year, the annual Lancaster Entertainment and Arts Festival is returning on the 14th June at the Dukes Playhouse and this time promises a bigger, brighter and bolder evening of film and live music than ever before. SCAN talks to Kieran Foster, the president of LU Film Society about this highly anticipated event.
“It will be a really good display of talent” is the most salient way in which Kieran can describe the festival happening this week. He has the society working with him, continuing last year’s success which took place on campus. This year, the organisers ventured into the heart of the arts scene in Lancaster with a guarantee to reach out wider to audiences and festival-goers. Foster and his team are particularly excited for the films to be witnessed on the silver screen. Everything about this festival has never been shinier and deserves every success in sight, especially after hearing him discuss the still ongoing preparations that will ensure the evening remains a talking point within circles long after.
It will follow a similar format, with an expected collection of ten short films, each of them under fifteen minutes. The entries represent the teeming talent that is brewing at the university, comprising students studying film, not least those from other disciplines, and the members of the society who have had the opportunity to attend workshops on film making skills provided throughout the last two terms. Society members would have also had plenty of inspiration from the film screenings regularly hosted by FilmSoc, and the LU Cinema which screens films that have just had finished box-office run, proving that film is very much an essential part of student life. Equally intriguing is an entry by a Manchester film-maker which certainly signifies the festival’s expansion. A documentary from one of the taught modules in the Film course highlights the variety of short films that are all in the running to being awarded esteemed prizes on the night, decided by a panel of judges and for the first time by an audience vote.
What to expect? Here is a synopsis of a film entered by film student Laura Jayne Henry.
“When Zoe’s friend Kiera suggests they get a group of friends together to play with a ouija board, Zoe can’t help but feel uneasy. Opening doors to the other side bring nothing but bad news in her eyes, and it seems to be too little too late for her; it’s plain to see by the mysterious ghost girl and faceless Stranger who haunt her that she’s already gone too far. Now with Kiera and friends pushing her to join in, the door to Zoe’s ominous secret is about to be torn right off its hinges, letting the ghosts of her past finally come in.” – Doors
