NEXT month Borderlines Film Festival opens a richly varied programme of cinematic delights to audiences in Herefordshire, Shropshire and the Marches.

The movie menu includes Oscar nominees Black Swan, which won Natalie Portman the leading actress award at the recent BAFTAs, and True Grit, winner of the BAFTA for best cinematography. Also see Biutiful, which has earned Javier Bardem a fully deserved Oscar nomination for best actor, and the understated Never Let Me Go, an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel about the fragility of love in a chilling, alternative present.

There’s also the usual mix of classics from Some Like It Hot to Rashomon (the most influential Japanese film ever made), local archive film and some fabulous animation for adults – the stirring Cuban rhythms of Chico and Rita – and children, in Tangled and Despicable Me. Stunning world cinema ranges from from Australia, (Samson and Delilah, Animal Kingdom) to Mexico (Circo, Norteado).

In 37 venues, from The Courtyard to Norman churches, the back rooms of pubs, innumerable village halls and even in a renovated 1960s 22-seater Moviebus, the festival enters several new dimensions in this, its ninth year.

An extended programme of live film-related events kicks off at Ledbury’s Market Theatre with Jo Brand revealing her Desert Island Films to The Film Programme’s Francine Stock. And, fresh from touring with Paul Merton, unrivalled silent film pianist Neil Brand presents his rib-tickling one-man show at Cawley Hall in Eye, near Leominster.

These events have been made possible through the Herefordshire Leader programme, part funded by the European Union and Defra.

Back at The Courtyard, in association with BAFTA, Borderlines is delighted to present Nicolas Roeg In Conversation. One of Britain’s leading directors, Roeg’s Don’t Look Now topped Time Out’s recent poll of best British movies. Complementing this unique event will be a screening of Roeg’s soon to be re-released Walkabout.

Borderlines also premieres its very own award ceremony, Under Open Skies, with awards given in honour of Herefordshire amateur film-maker Harry Williamson to the best documentaries, amateur and professional, about Britain’s natural world.

There’s music too, with Hereford’s own legendary rock band in attendance for the opening night screening of The Ballad of Mott the Hoople, and musical genius Steven Severin – the ex-Siousxie and the Banshees bass-player and co-founder – who performs his live score to Jean Cocteau’s scandalous 1930 film Blood of a Poet.

“We’re very excited to be bringing so many talented people and exceptional films to the area,” says Borderlines executive director Naomi Vera-Sanso. “This is the best, most ambitious festival we’ve ever mounted.”

The festival will also be paying its respects to actor and Shropshire resident Pete Postlethwaite, showing two of his films, Distant Voices Still Lives and, prior to its UK release, a BAFTA Gala screening of Killing Bono, his last role.

For full details, visit borderlinesfilmfestival.org.