Blog: Film festivals

Cine-Excess is an international film festival and conference devoted to the critical study of global cult film traditions, and has been running annually since 2007. Cine-Excess hosts UK theatrical premieres and exclusive screenings, visiting international filmmakers, a themed conference and media mentoring sessions for young filmmakers.

Cine-Excess has a strong tradition of attracting global cult filmmakers as guests to the event, who attend as recipients of the annual Cine-Excess Lifetime Achievement Award. Some of the previous filmmaking guests of honour to have attended Cine-Excess include Pam Grier, Brandon Cronenberg, Jen and Sylvia Soska, Catherine Breillat, Roger Corman, Dario Argento, Joe Dante, Vanessa Redgrave, Sergio Martino, Franco Nero, John Landis, Enzo G. Castellari, Brian Yuzna, Ruggero Deodato, Victoria Price, Stuart Gordon, Jeff Lieberman, Pete Walker, Norman J. Warren and Jake West.

In 2021 a new Cine-Excess Digital Film Channel will be launched to promote a selection of key films screened at the annual festival. The Cine-Excess Digital Film Channel will stream across both Amazon UK and Uscreen platforms, with the latter outlet providing a 'Director's Vision' imprint that compliments feature film releases with a range of ancillary extras created in collaboration with the filmmakers.

In terms of its programming strategy, Cine-Excess hosts a range of UK theatrical premieres and exclusive retrospective screenings from around the world, but with a strong focus on the following global territories: Europe, North America/Canada, Central America, Asia and Australia. The festival also retains a wide definition of cult film that encompasses a broad range of horror cycles, unconventional thrillers, revisionist or hybrid genres (such as science fiction, gangster cinema, dark love dramas or the western), action cycles or fantastic titles that can also be linked to wider national film traditions.

Cine-Excess remains committed to issues of diversity and inclusion, and this ethos informs both the annual festival and filmmakers promoted across the new Cine-Excess Digital Film Channel.