It’s alive, it’s alive…
The Chester International Film Festival (CIFF)returns from 21st March 2025 at Storyhouse, Chester. Showcasing a hand-picked selection of international film previews, locally curated short film programmes, special guest speakers, and unique cinematic adventures. Proudly produced in partnership with the University of Chester, and Storyhouse. Opening and closing reception with thanks to VAIN.
For the full programme and tickets visit the Storyhouse website here.
2024/2025 Programme
For Memberships, please go our Membership page
All our films are shown on Thursdays, at 7:30 pm and are hosted at Chester Picturehouse in their 218-seat Screen 1
We’ve split up the season into two parts, each being announced separately (click the links for details on each film):
Part One (Autumn/Winter 2024)
19th September 2024 – The Promised Land (Denmark)
10th October 2024 – The Origin of Evil (France)
31st October 2024 – Sorcery (Chile)
21st November 2024 – Mami Wata (Nigeria)
12th December 2024 – The Good Boss (Spain)
The flyer for Part 1 of the season can be viewed here.
Part Two (Winter/Spring 2025)
9th January 2025 – All We Imagine As Light (India)
30th January 2025 – The Echo (Mexico)
20th February 2025 – In The Mood For Love (Hong Kong) to be shown in Screen 2
13th March 2025 – Crossing (Sweden/Turkey)
[The Chester International Film Festival will take place at Storyhouse between 21st March and 3rd April 2025]
10th April 2025 – My Favourite Cake (Iran)
The flyer for Part 2 of the season can be viewed here.
Splitting the season into two parts allows us to take advantage of obtaining more recent films from World Cinema, which remains the focus of our programme. We put together a Film Programming Group of film society members who meet to discuss and agree on our final shortlist of films. These are then submitted to Picturehouse’s Senior Film Programmer who obtains the necessary screening licenses.
Membership and ticketing
As part of this new setup, Picturehouse will cover all the venue and film licensing costs. We will still operate a Film Society membership, but at only £10 for the whole season! This allows our members to buy tickets for each film directly from Picturehouse at just £5 a time. Non-members are still welcome, but they would have to buy tickets at the full standard Picturehouse price (currently £10 plus any online booking fee)
‘I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring,’
David Bowie, 1997.