20th February - Cast and Crew out in force for our Opening Gala Film!

Subject to work commitments, director David LG Hughes, producer Margaret Matheson and many of the cast, including Peter Wight ("Hot Fuzz", "My Week with Marilyn"), Paul Freeman ("Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Centurion"), Scott Williams ("The Crew"), Philip Barantini ("Ned Kelly"), Ty Glaser (TV's "Secret Diary of a Call Girl"), Rene Zagger (TV's "The Take" and "Silent Witness"), Danny Sapani ("The Oxford Murders", "Mercenaries"), Liz May Bryce ("Resident Evil", TV's "Torchwood") and Nathaniel Martello-White ("Deadmeat", "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2") have already said they will be joining us for the very special, red carpet premiere of gritty thriller "Hard Boiled Sweets". A limited number of tickets will be available to the public; keep checking here for further details.

30th January - Closing Night Gala Film announced!

The star-studded Closing Night Gala film, at the Park Inn Palace Hotel on Monday 7 May, will be "Lost in Italy", a mystery about a man waking up in Italy in 1954 - without any idea why he is there! Producer/star Glen Murphy and director Craig Viveiros have brought together an excellent cast headed by Southend Film Festival Patron Ray Winstone. Filmed on location in Italy and Essex, "Lost in Italy" took the Best World Cinema Feature prize at the New York Hell's Kitchen Film Festival. We are honoured that such a prestigious film will be having its UK premiere in Southend. Tickets will be available to the public; keep checking here for further details.

20th January - Opening Night Gala Film announced!

We are delighted to announce that the Opening Night Gala film will be "Hard Boiled Sweets". This new, gritty British gangster thriller, "with no soft centre", was filmed in Southend and stars Ian Hart, Peter Wight, Paul Freeman and Elizabeth Berrington. Writer/director David L. G. Hughes and many guests from the film will be joining us at the Odeon cinema on Thursday 3 May for this very special occasion. A limited number of tickets will be available to the public; keep checking here for further details.

6th January - Main Festival venues confirmed

Following the Gala Night Opening at the Odeon on Thursday 3rd May, the main festival will be held at the Palace Theatre on Friday and Saturday and at the Park Inn Palace Hotel on Sunday and Monday.

31st December - Festival Fringe extended

Southend Central Museum has added a further screening to its schedule, so the Festival will now run from 30th April to 9th May. The Museum will be showing Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo (30th April, with a Q&A with the director via Skype), Dark Star (1st May) and Serenity (8th May), all starting at 7.15pm. Full details will be provided in the festival programme.

5th December - Ticket price announced

All tickets for the 2012 Southend-on-Sea Film Festival will be £4. This reflects ever-increasing film hire and other costs, while keeping the festival as accessible as possible to all.

17th November – Horror on Sea Festival announced!

Southend-on-Sea Film Festival Director Paul Cotgrove is delighted to announce a new film festival. Launching “Horror on Sea”, Paul said “This will, at long last, provide fans of horror and fantasy in the Southend area with their own dedicated film festival. There will be premieres of new, mainly British, horror films, as well as many screenings of the classics (and the not-so-classics!), panel discussions and other events. Filmmakers and actors will be on hand to discuss their films, and the horror genre, during what should be a fantastic weeken.”

The Horror on Sea Film Festival will be held at the Park Inn Palace Hotel over the weekend of 18-20 January 2013. A dedicated website will be launched in due course; in the meantime please keep checking here for the latest news.

19th July - 2012 Southend Film Festival will go ahead!

Thanks to funding from the British Film Institute's Lottery Transitional Fund for Audience Development the 2012 Southend Film Festival will definitely go ahead. The award of this funding is a fantastic indication of just how far the festival has come in just three years. In making this award, Peter Buckingham, Head of Distribution and Exhibition at the BFI, said: "The organisations that have received awards contribute hugely to the access and promotion of film in the UK. They are incredibly valuable which is why it has been important for the BFI to help them."

However, it is still essential that we continue to seek further grants and corporate sponsorship to ensure the festival in 2012 will be the best yet!