Get ready for Lockdown special of Margate Film Festival

Hurt by Paradise is one of the films featured

Margate Film Festival returns this month for its third year with a lockdown special edition, bringing you exclusive access to films from around the world, available to watch from the comfort of your own home.

The festival kicks off on Friday (November 27), with the launch of #100years from The Cabinet of Living Cinema, presenting a collection of live score performances to silent films from across the last century, with an Instagram Live introduction.

Francesca Ter-Berg will close the festival on Sunday, November 29 with a live performance streamed from the Tom Thumb Theatre.

Stand-out features this year include yet to be released Rose Plays Julie, a gripping psychological thriller about a young woman seeking her biological mother; March For Dignity documenting the organisers of Tbilisi Pride fight for visibility in Georgia (in partnership with Margate Pride); Hurt By Paradise, partly shot in Margate following a young mother who tries to carve out a career with comically unsuccessful results; and Our Most Brilliant Friends, a funny, heartbreaking and intimate documentary that unflinchingly observes the fragile relationships of Slow Club during their 2016 tour.

Amongst the short films programmes are mythical creatures, mysterious strangers and magical encounters, as well as daredevil explorers, struggling artists and ancestral powers. For the first time the festival is including a family friendly programme, Our Natural World, in collaboration with Rise Up Clean Up, to inspire children ages 5+ to question how we can save our oceans; and collaboration with DocHouse to present their lockdown-inspire short film collection.

There will be a return of Coasting Along, a collection of short films that bring together characters living by the coast, who find themselves drifting through life – with films shot  in Margate, Herne Bay and Broadstairs.

The festival is supporting PeopleDem Collective through voluntary donations for its #BlackLivesMatter collection, documenting injustice against Black communities around the world.

Audiences will also be able to access archive film collection, The Margate Time Warp, documenting the local area from 1925 onwards.

There are more than 50 films to view and all are offered with sliding-scale ticket pricing and are available for view across the whole weekend.

Explore the full programme and book tickets at https://bit.ly/MargateFF20