Lowestoft Film Festival founders keen to promote local talent

Joshua Freemantle said he decided to set up the festival after he found a lack of opportunities to get into the film industry when he left school at 16 years old

The co-founder of a film festival says he hopes it will give young filmmakers a chance to showcase their work.

Joshua Freemantle and Patrick Johnson started the Lowestoft Film Festival in 2022 and it has received 393 entries for this year's event.

Mr Freemantle, 20, said he believed financial situation or geography should not deter young people from the craft.

He described the film festival, now in its second year, as "genuinely grass roots".

The pair founded the film festival to provide young people with opportunities of having their short films screened to live audiences.

Mr Freemantle said: "We are supporting and picking up filmmakers content that you wouldn't otherwise see in larger film festivals.

"We are genuinely grassroots and we give everyone the chance - but that also comes back with this year from the submissions... our longlist was 186."

The 20-year-old said he had spent 85 hours going through this year's submitted entries.

Patrick Johnson (left) and Joshua Freemantle founded the festival in 2022 and have ambitions of national recognition

With a team of 25 volunteers who were assigned 10 to 15 films to watch, each submission must be viewed at least four times before they are judged.

"We want to make sure that people have been treated equally and that there's been no bias decisions made... we're future proofing ourselves with our long-term goals of wanting to be a qualifying festival so we're making sure we already meet those requirements," Mr Freemantle added.

The films will be screened in three community venues across Lowestoft from 20 to 27 October.

The filmmakers hope the festival will go on to qualify for the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) or the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA).

Mr Freemantle said: "It would all of a sudden be this gateway for people to submit their films in the East to bigger and better opportunities and have their content discovered.

"That's really important in a town like Lowestoft where there's high levels of deprivation and social inequality within the whole community, but also for young people to have that opportunity to get to the next steps in their passions."