Our Story




In 2007 a small film festival in Newport was set up to give film-makers a much needed opportunity to get their work screened, to an appreciative audience! And thus the Film Festival Guild was born.
In 2012 the Film Festival Guild moved into its London Bridge headquarters at Clink Street Studios and has a full time staff of dedicated film lovers and professionals! We've come a long way and plan to go much further!
The Newport International Film Festival was the first of the festivals ran by the Film Festival Guild, but it started a passion by the team to create more opportunities for both audiences and film-makers alike to have top quality work shown in top quality cinemas.
The British Independent Film Festival and the British Horror Film Festival arrived in 2010, giving the Guild two tent-pole festivals that they could roll out across the UK.
In 2011 both festivals found their way to the Empire Cinema in the prestigious Leicester Square. Making the festivals not only more exciting and impressive, but also giving them an international significance of being the only two festivals ran by the same company operating in the British film industry's most significant square.
In 2012 the British Animation Film Festival had its first year, a great successful one, with sell out screenings and film makers attending to introduce their films from all around the world. The trendy Shoreditch district of London was chosen as the venue and didn't disappoint!
Whilst all of these great events were happening the Newport International Film Festival continued to grow, moving home from the Meze Lounge, to Cineworld to finally finding its home at the beautiful Riverfront Cinema complex.
The Film Festival Guild continues to reinvest all of its revenues in making each festival bigger and louder than the last. The After Parties have become legendary, with well known celebrities joining in the partying until the early hours, whilst film deals have been made on the dance floor!
We continue to strive to have more fun, more screenings, bigger audiences and creating great events! Join the party, submit your film, buy a ticket to a screening and support British & Independent film!




The Archive
Interested in how we started? Just curious which films have been in our selections? Check out our archive where you can peruse each festival's history in its entirety.
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