ONE of the undoubted highlights of the year, Borderlines Film Festival opens on Friday, March 1, with some prestigious additions to an already rich and varied programme.

It has been announced that the festival will host the English premiere of Byzantium, the striking new film by Neil Jordan (writer and director of The Crying Game and Michael Collins). Starring Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan, it’s at The Courtyard on March 12.

A contemporary vampire film, Byzantium marks a return for Jordan to the gothic fantasy territory of Interview With a Vampire and The Company of Wolves. Two women, ostensibly sisters, on the run from a mysterious stranger arrive in a down-at-heel seaside town to make a new life for themselves.

“We are privileged indeed that the distributor Studiocanal has given the go-ahead for the first English screening of this exciting new film by a major director to take place here at Borderlines,” says festival director Naomi Vera- Sanso.

“The occasion will be all the more special because the editor, Tony Lawson, a longtime collaborator of Neil Jordan, will be present to introduce the movie.”

Byzantium will receive a repeat screening in the luxurious surroundings of the festival’s latest venue, the 50-seater Booth’s Bookshop Cinema in Hay, on a date and time to be announced.

The identity of the festival’s mystery film, screened on March 9 at The Courtyard, has also just been revealed as Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, winner of two BAFTAs for best original screenplay and best supporting actor (Christoph Waltz).

The other writing award, for adapted screenplay, went to David O Russell, director of ‘feel-better’ romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook.

Life of Pi, for which tickets are selling fast, also won two BAFTAs, for special visual effects and cinematography.

And truth-isstranger- than-fiction documentary The Imposter, showing at three Flicks in the Sticks venues – Acton Scott Village Hall, Leominster Playhouse and Ledbury Market Theatre – garnered the outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer award for Bart Layton (director) and Dimitri Doganis (producer).

For full programme details and to book online, go to borderlinesfilm festival.org or call the central box office on 01432 340555.