Wirral International Film festival entries grow

Jul 8 2009 by Matt Hurst, Birkenhead News

ENTRIES are flying in for this year’s Wirral International Film Festival as the schedule is extended to 10 days and trips to America and France arranged.

The inaugural Wirral International Film Festival (WIFF) took place in November last year as an independent, entirely self-funded project with the aim of providing an outlet for amateurs and a local, free, movie-going experience for silver screen enthusiasts.

Last year, a total of 96 films were shown and organisers Phil Bimpson and Alan Veste are hoping to top that and broaden the international element by inviting contributions from Wirral twin towns on the continent and America.

Latina, an industrial town in Italy twinned with Wirral, submitted a number of films for WIFF 2008 but Alan and Phil are hoping for a bigger event all round this year.

Alan said: “We’re going to set up as a not-for-profit company so we can try and access grants and funding.”

If grants are secured the pair will be able to invest in more projectors and screens, improve the trophies and provide food and refreshments.

Anybody can enter the competition as long as either they or their film has some connection to Wirral.

And this year, the awards remit will broaden to recognise the efforts of actors, lighting and other aspects of film-making.