Founded in 2000, the East End Film Festival is one of the UK’s largest film festivals. An annual multi-platform festival held in London, the EEFF presents a rich and diverse programme of international premieres, industry masterclasses, free pop-up screenings and immersive live events. The EEFF’s mission is to discover, support, and exhibit pioneering work by global and local independent filmmakers, and to introduce viewers to innovative and challenging cinematic experiences.

Attracting an annual audience of more than 30,000, the EEFF has established itself as a major international film festival situated at the heart of London’s most dynamic quarter. Committed to the work of first and second time directors, the annual EEFF showcases more than fifty feature film screenings, several short film programmes, and a variety of cross-arts events and industry activities across the festival. The EEFF’s established awards system includes: Best Film (reserved for first and second time directors); Best UK Short Film; Accession Award (reserved for a particular industry discipline); the EEFF Short Film Audience Award and new for 2017; the Rising Star Award; and our £10,000 Transit Award.

Our dirty picks include Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Tehran Taboo.

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The Unrestricted View Film Festival opens on April 23rd. The award winner’s announcement and ceremony will take place at 8pm on Sunday 29th April at festival’s hub venue, The Hen & Chickens.

Creative Director, James Wren, said: “This year, we were overwhelmed by the quality and quantity of submissions and the finalised programme boasts a wealth of talent from across the world. Deciding on finalists has been a challenging task as every film in this year’s programme showcases exceptional talent from all levels of experience of filmmakers, and is a wonderful celebration of independent film at its finest.

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This year the Festival celebrates are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the first proper SF novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with a little WTF twist.

The opening night movie is Maurice Haaems’ debut, Chimera, a powerful film that asks “do you want to live forever?” They close with a fantastic and prescient film called Division 19, a UK production written and directed by Suzie Halewood.

There are myriad shorts in the festival – five programmes of them… be sure to catch at least one! And new this year is their partnership with The Moxy Hotel and Pitch, both great drinking spots for after screening socials.

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The opening will therefore take place on the evening of Tuesday, 8^th May and the awards ceremony will be on Saturday, 19^th May.

“Following 2017’s anniversary edition, the Festival is beginning a new period in its history,” says Festival President Pierre Lescure. “We intend to renew the principles of our organisation as much as possible, while continuing to question the cinema of our age and to be present through its upheavals.”

This new schedule will allow us to rebalance the two weeks of the event and to bring new energy to the proceedings.

What is more, starting on a Tuesday will allow us to hold an additional gala evening before the Festival weekend and to organise previews of the opening film throughout France.

Finally, bringing forward the announcement of awards by one day, to Saturday evening, will increase its prestige, while at the same time giving the closing film better exposure.

DMovies will be following Cannes live. Click here for more information about the event.