An annual event in March, the festival takes place at The Maltings and in satellite venues across the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, on the English border with Scotland.

Leading through collaboration, the festival has a resolute commitment to the mutual development of the artists, audiences, filmmakers and programmers that make the festival possible.

The festival’s New Cinema Awards champion filmmakers who push against boundaries of genre, form and convention, disarming expectations and enlivening our relationship with cinema.

Selected by a team of curators, BFMAF’s cinema and exhibition programmes present profiles of filmmakers from across the world, transcending contemporary practice and archival work.

Recurring festival strands include Essential Cinema, a programme of retrospectives which proposes revisions and additions to what might be considered canonical cinema; and Propositions, a discussion and performance space  for filmmakers and curators to offer first-hand perspectives, expanding their work and research.