KCL Strand Film Festival
25 March - 1 April 2026

The student-led KCL Strand Film Festival returns for its ninth instalment, with an exciting programme of features, short films, special guests, and live performances. No matter what your interest, there's something for everyone, and best of all, tickets are free!

This year's festival opens on Wednesday 25/03, with an interactive horror showcase, with audience-members choosing the next moves for the protagonist in THE RUN (2025), followed by a Q&A with the film's BAFTA-winning writer/director Paul Raschid. 

On Thursday 26/03, KCLSFF continues with Short Film Fry Up, a bite-sized selection of intercontinental short films, each bringing a unique perspective to breakfast and its various roles in our lives. 

On Friday 27/03, we're joined by Lucas van der Rhee and Chris Westendorpe, co-directors of QUEERKAMP (2024), who will present their empathetic, intimate, and powerful documentary tracing four queer youths at a crucial moment in their development, followed by an in-person Q&A.

The bounty of screen delights continues on Monday 30/03, as we present an evening dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, with a live introduction from a Poe expert, short films, and a screening of Jean Epstein's The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), with a live violin score from Marika Tyler-Clark. 

On Tuesday 31/03, KCLSFF hosts an exclusive masterclass and Q&A with Singaporean writer-director Nicole Midori Woodford, with a screening of two of her short films, followed by an in-depth conversation exploring her path from shorts to features.

We round out the 9th KCL Strand Film Festival on Wednesday 01/04, with a double-bill of screenings, starting with Growing Up In Avoidance: Sinophone Short Films, a curated selection of five shorts that explore how we grow into ourselves not through confrontation, but through learning to live with what cannot be spoken, named, or resolved. 

This is followed by our closing event, RA.I.VE in which we present YICHU 1.0 a ‘Cyberfeminist Odyssey Through Film and RAVE CINEMA’  with a virtual Q&A with award-winning artist Yichu Li, followed by a RAVE CINEMA audiovisual live set (DJ/VJ), which blends AI-generated visuals, techno music, and ritualistic storytelling to explore cyberfeminism, free will, posthuman transformation, and the future of digital consciousness.

The KCL Strand Film Festival (25 March - 1 April 2026) takes place at King's College London's Strand campus, and is curated by students on the Film Festivals and Film Festival Studies module in the Department of Film Studies.

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