BORDERLINES, the UK’s largest rural film festival, features no less than 18 screenings of the winner of this year's Golden Globe for best film, 12 Years a Slave. The film will screen at Borderlines in five venues: The Courtyard, Ludlow Assembly Rooms, Wem Town Hall, the Regal Tenbury Wells and kinokulture cinema in Oswestry.

This powerful and passionate period piece from British director Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame) is a searing indictment of slavery, based on a true story and has gained five star reviews across the board, an amazing 10 BAFTA nomonations and is tipped for Oscar success. Supporting actress, newcomer Lupita Nyong’o has also been nominated for the BAFTA EE Rising Star Award.

The 2014 Festival programme, revealed this week, will comprise more than 200 screenings, with 80-plus films and events in 32 venues over 17 days, from Friday, February 28 February to Sunday, March 16, stretching across four counties: Herefordshire, Shropshire, Powys and Worcestershire.

A key highlight is a specially commissioned event, playing only at the Borderlines Film Festival, as festival patron and Radio 4's presenter of The Film Programme, Francine Stock, is joined on stage by silent film accompanist Neil Brand (fresh from the BBC’s The Sound of Cinema season) for a unique screening of short films featuring the legendary French actor and comedian Max Linder in a double bill with extracts from the Fantomas films of René Navarre.

Max Linder had a profound influence on Charlie Chaplin, who described him as The Professor, and sometimes borrowed gags or entire plotlines from Linder's films. This event represents the launch of the Ah, Mon Héros strand of six films, a unique perspective on French cinema curated by Francine Stock and produced with the support of the French Institute.

The Festival films are programmed for the second year running by the Independent Cinema Office’s David Sin. In addition to the customary rich mix of contemporary world and British cinema, feature documentaries, classics and local productions and archive films, the number of special previews, films show prior to general release, has more than doubled to 13 this year.

“We are delighted that our continuing collaboration with the Independent Cinema Office means that approximately 20% of the 2014 festival programme will consist of feature films shown prior to general release," said festival director Naomi Vera-Sanso. “It’s a terrific boost for an area that usually has to wait a month to six weeks for cinema releases to come through and a triumph for a film festival that was set up 12 years ago to bring cinema in all its rich variety to one of the most rural and isolated parts of the country.”

Among the highlights for 2014 are a strand of films about the sea (including All is Lost, For Those in Peril, Leviathan, Captain Phillips), a mini-retrospective of the work of Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu along with his new film, Like Father, Like Son, and a collection of films about music: the Coen brothers' latest, Inside Llewyn Davis, Welsh fiction film Benny & Jolene, the documentary Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction, We Are the Best (1980s girl punks from Sweden) and Muscle Shoals.

The Festival returns this year to the magnificently restored Art Deco Regal in Tenbury Wells, and it also incorporates events in a club atmosphere at Hereford’s Jailhouse. Events at The Jailhouse include a night of cosplay fancy dress for the audiences with cult movie, sci fi and comic book burlesque performances with live music, as well as a showing of the cult 1990s movie about the club scene in Cardiff, Human Traffic, with the director Justin Kerrigan present.

Confirmed festival guests include Trevor Eve who stars as bereaved farmer Gordon in his son Jack’s impressive debut feature Death of a Farmer.

Booking for all films and events commences on Monday 20 January at 10.00am either in person at The Courtyard, Hereford, online at www.borderlinesfilmfestival.org, by calling the Central Box Office number 01432 340555 or contacting the individual venues directly.