Borderline Film Festival 2026
06 March 2026 to 16 March 2026
As ever, the line-up features a mix of the best new releases, as well as a large proportion of previews, films screening before their official UK cinema release.
Strong awards contenders include Golden Globe winners One Battle After Another, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, and The Secret Agent from Brazil. Seven out of the fifteen titles in the Oscar shortlist for International Feature will be showing at Borderlines including The President’s Cake (Iraq), No Other Choice (Park Chan Wook) from South Korea and Sound of Falling (Germany).
As always, there is strong rural representation within this year’s festival programme. Starting with a silent film from 1925, Grass: A Nation's Battle For Life, that follows the spectacular annual spring migration of the nomadic Bakhtiari tribes of Iran, contemporary documentaries explore the sheer diversity of natural life (Super Nature), the effects of climate change in Galicia (Only On Earth), rural farming communities in the American South (Seeds), and the reintroduction of brown bears into the French Pyrenees (The Shepherd and the Bear). Laura Dern, Will Arnett, Calvin Knegtem in Is This Thing On? Baneen Ahmed Nayyef in The President’s Cake Our Land is a documentary that investigates both sides of the debate around the Right to Roam and its director, Orban Wallace, will be at the festival to introduce the film with a Q&A to follow. There is no shortage of feature films set in rural locations either: DJ Ahmet from North Macedonia, The Love That Remains from Iceland, The Blue Trail from Brazil, and Redoubt from Sweden. Lighter-hearted offerings at Borderlines Film Festival this year include Is This Thing On?, starring Laura Dern and Will Arnett, a lovely documentary about competitive porridge-making, The Golden Spurtle, and the bittersweet Rental Family, featuring Brendan Foster as an American adrift in Japan.
The Open Screen Award showcasing the talents of local filmmakers returns with a prize generously donated by Hereford based John Finch Computers.
There are screenings at the Market Theatre in Ledbury, The Lady Emily Community Hall in Tarrington, and at Malvern Theatres where 80 screenings take place during the festival. Now in its 24th year, the festival is supported by the BFI Audience Projects Fund, awarding National Lottery funding, the Elmley Foundation and Hereford City Council.
Tickets and passes for the festival go on sale via Malvern Theatres on 01684 892277 or borderlinesfilmfestival.co.uk/