HFS FESTIVAL FEATURES
Introduction
HFS Festival Features is an initiative from Harrogate Film Society offering a series of online screenings which will also form part of a features competition, culminating with screenings and awards at the annual Harrogate Film Festival.
HFS Festival Features showcases a range of films from around the world that have been submitted by filmmakers for consideration. Whilst the short film competition remains the cornerstone of Harrogate Film Festival, HFS Festival Features offers a route for filmmakers to submit their feature length films as part of a features competition hosted by Harrogate Film Society but integrated into the main Festival.
If you are a film-maker and you would like to submit a feature film for consideration, you can do so using the button linking you to the FilmFreeway website.
HFS Festival Features films will appear on the HFS website on a regular basis throughout the year. Online audience members will have the opportunity to record feedback after a viewing. All visitors to our site are invited to watch as many of our selection of features as they wish and then complete the brief audience survey after viewing each film. Simply click on the HFS logo at the very end of the film and you will be taken to the feedback page. You can also access the feedback page by clicking here.
As would be expected at any film festival, these films have not been rated for general cinema release. Viewers are advised that the programme includes a wide range of themes and content; some general viewing and some more adult in nature.
The Features competition will be overseen by our Features Review Panel- a group of panel judges which includes some members of the main Festival Judging Panel (which oversees the short film competition.) The top three films, as assessed by the HFS online audience and the Features Review Panel, will be showcased on the big screen as part of the Harrogate Film Festival.
The 2020-2021 Harrogate Film Festival was conducted in phases commencing with online festivals in March and May 2021 followed by cinema presentations in June and September.
Whilst the effects of the pandemic have disrupted plans for the 2022 Harrogate Film Festival, our online Festival Features competition is continuing (with a final deadline of 31 May on Film Freeway) and the winners from this 2021-22 Festival Features competition will be screened during the summer of 2022 in Harrogate.
A new Festival Features programme will commence in the autumn of 2022 with the winners being screened as part of the 2023 Harrogate Film Festival.
Please check the Festival website for the latest details.
In the meantime - happy viewing!
Previous Featured Festival Films
Available
14 -19 December
Behind the Name
SHAKESPEARE: Power, Lust,
Scorn & Scandal
directed by Robin Phillips
Genre: Documentary/Drama/Comedy
USA
99 mns
Available 7-12 December
Trailer
WHO CREATED THE GREATEST WORK OF IAMBIC THUNDER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE? “Behind the Name SHAKESPEARE: Power, Lust, Scorn & Scandal” answers that question in this fun yet important film. It is a costume-filled journey into literary history’s greatest mystery: Who really wrote the works of Shakespeare?
Available
14 -19 December
Built Lands
directed by Arturo Dueñas Herrero
Genre: Documentary
Spain
82 mns
Available 7-12 December
Trailer
In the late 60s a group of artists decides to settle in a village in the ‘darkest-deepest’ Spain. Today only Felix Cuadrado Lomas remains there, determined to reflect the landscape which surrounds him: the lands built by those who work on them.
Available
14 -19 December
Lady Usher
directed by George Adams
Genre: Suspense/ Thriller
USA
80 mns
Available 14-19 December
Trailer
An award-winning suspense/thriller based on the short story; The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe. This updated re-telling is written by award winning filmmaker George Adams. It possesses the quintessential features of the Gothic: a large dreary house, strange macabre characters with doubled personalities and a mysterious sickness.
The plot is tongue-in-cheek, bizarre, and full of unforeseen disturbances.
Available
14 -19 December
The Lost Shoes
directed by Tomaso Aramini and
Rafiqfuad Yarahmadi
Genres: Drama
Italy
104 mns
Available 14-19 December
Trailer
The story of a man from Verona countryside who devoted his life and political experience to his communist ideals until he challenged NATO. Together with him, thousands of other people who tried to radically change Italy and the world during the 70s.
Available
14 -19 December
The Scariest Movie Ever
directed by KJ Ozborne
Genre: Sci-fi/Crime/Horror
USA
206 mns
Available 21-26 December
Trailer
This is the sequel to the Director’s original documentary The Scariest Movie Ever Made (2007) which has garnered a 'cult following' online. What is the scariest movie ever made? You are living in it!
Available
14 -19 December
Tijuana, I love you.
directed by Rene Bueno
Genre: Drama
Mexico
88 mns
Available 28 Dec - 2 Jan
Trailer
Seven stories related to the capital sins, all happening in Tijuana
Available
14 -19 December
Tinsel - the Lost Movie about Hollywood
directed by James F. Robinson
Genre: Documentary
USA
79 mns
Available 28 Dec - 2 Jan
Trailer
A humorous, melancholy, and affectionate look at the global obsession with movies, "TINSEL - The Lost Movie About Hollywood" was lost for 30 years and never shown publicly. the film includes new footage and reflections on present-day Hollywood. An outside-in, inside-out view of the Motion Picture Industry circa 1990, the film explores fame in general and the love of movies.
Available
14 -19 December
directed by Akimi Ota
Genre: Documentary
UK
120 mns
Available 4- 9 January
Trailer
Akimi Ota takes us with him in the life of a Shuar indigenous family living in "Kenkuim", a village situated in the inaccessible Ecuadorian Amazon. Their life follows the rhythms of the forest and their daily routine features manual labour and long drinks of "Chicha", a manioc-based liqueur.
Akimi create a documentary that can be an intimate testimony to the family vicissitudes that characterize the lives of the Shuar people every day,
Available
14 -19 December
Baggage Red
directed by Christiano Evans and Roberto Russo
Genre: Drama / relationships
Italy
93 mns
Available 4- 9 January
Trailer
Two successful families are brought together through the marriage of Jack and Olivia. The happy couple move from London to Sorrento, and there they begin a picturesque new life together. But the paradise they seek begins to crumble as tensions lead them to dark temptations and addictions that rock the very foundations of their perfect lifestyle. Their lives slip out of control, as past family secrets are unearthed and brought back to life. Through this untrod and imperfect journey, they must come together and accept that their perfect lives will never be the same again.
Available
14 -19 December
Cold Calm
directed by Tyna Ezenma
Genre:Horror
Nigeria
103 mns
Available 11-16 January
Trailer
A mentally ill survivor of a disfiguring assault invites her unwitting assailant over for an evening of horrific revenge.
Available
14 -19 December
Ruff Life- games, gaslighting and bitches
directed by Tom McPhee
Genre: Documentary
USA
77 mns
Available 11-16 January
Trailer
2,000 healthy dogs are killed every day in American Shelters. In 2011 activist filmmaker Tom McPhee began a nine-year examination of America's homeless dog population that results in a million healthy dogs being killed every year in American shelters.
It is the wild west in the world of domestic animal rescue in the United States, where the rule of law is what you can get away with.
Available
14 -19 December
Green Flake
directed by Mauli Junior Bonner
Genre: Drama/History
USA
105 mns
Available 18-23 January
Trailer
A young slave is sent to trek 1500 miles across country to prepare a path for his slave master. We witness the heroic journey of "Green Flake" who goes from s
Southern slave to western hero.
Available
14 -19 December
Straightn'er
directed by Lee Murtagh
Genre: Drama/Crime
UK
133 mns
Available 18-23 January
Trailer
About 3 years ago, a professional film maker, asked me; “have you ever organised anything strictly illegal”. The film makers goal was to make something original. I explained to him that I was once approached by someone, who told me there was a problem between 2 families in the town where they lived. They asked me to resolve the issue by using the ring at my boxing club, so they could settle their differences
Available
14 -19 December
The Man Who Knew Too Much
directed by Michael Oswald
Genre: Documentary
UK
70 ins
Available 25-30 January
Trailer
A British Army PsyOps operative falls out with the intelligence community and is framed for a murder
Available
14 -19 December
Unvisible Monsters
directed by Ross Novie
Genre: Sci-Fi
USA
60 mns
Available 25-30 January
Trailer
Boy accidentally discovers parallel dimension. Friend dies. Crackpot Scientist finds him. Government exploits their research. Monsters escape. Now, Boy and Scientist must save the world.
Available
14 -19 December
Basenjii
directed by Ross Novie
Genre: Psychological drama
Nepal
80 mns
Available 1-6 February
Trailer
After his father is fired for writing a report on Nepal's agricultural industry, a young man has his life spiral into a nightmare as a series of mysterious and disturbing events plunges him deep into the horrifying secrets of his past.
Available
14 -19 December
For Money or Love
directed by Vianlix Mestey
Genre: Drama / Comedy
USA
107 mns
Available 1-6 February
Trailer
Patrick is in love with his beautiful girlfriend. The problem is Patrick is a wealthy man. He wonders if she is with him for true love or just because he has money?
His father and brother do as well. When his father and brother put a hold on all his financials,
Patrick’s girlfriend finds herself in the middle of everything.
Will she stay with him or leave? Or will Patrick find love in another?
Available
14 -19 December
First Signal
directed by Mark Lund
Genre: Sci-Fi
USA
103 mns
Available 8-13 February
Trailer
When Air Force Space Command receives a signal from an alien satellite in Earth orbit an emergency meeting with the President reveals a government conspiracy
Available
14 -19 December
The Last Roll
directed by Dáire McNab
Genre: Comedy
Ireland
98 mns
Available 8-13 February
Trailer
Patrick is in love with his beautiful girlfriend. The problem is Patrick is a wealthy man. He wonders if she is with him for true love or just because he has money?
His father and brother do as well. When his father and brother put a hold on all his financials,
Patrick’s girlfriend finds herself in the middle of everything.
Will she stay with him or leave? Or will Patrick find love in another?
Available
14 -19 December
Orcus
directed by Peter Daniel Kane, Jimmy Hagri
Genre: Drama
UK
106 mns
Available 15-20 February
Trailer
A priest, about to lose his church due to money problems, gathers a team of desperate men to rob the local diocese. During the robbery they kidnap a young woman who hides a dark secret.