This Friday marks the opening of the sixth annual Watersprite Film Festival and a quick glance at their website will show you the schedule is absolutely packed. A truly impressive number of big, award-winning names appear on the programme; among them are Notting Hill director Roger Michell, very busy – and skilful – actor Tom Hollander (see Pirates of the Caribbean, In the Loop, and Pride and Prejudice to name a few), presenter and BBC documentary regular Stacey Dooley and 2015 Oscar-nominated documentary maker Orlando von Einsiedel. There are many, many more but that sentence is already long and clunky.

How did a student-run film festival pull off such a feat? Festival director, Lily Staff explains “We are lucky enough to have help from a lot of people in the industry, in particular our chair, [multi-award winning television and film producer] Hilary Bevan Jones. But mostly we are lucky that speakers want to give something back and offer their time to us.”

Staff is keen to point out that this year’s festival is slightly more geared towards “career-savvy aspiring filmmakers” with many events offering “realistic, relevant and practical advice about how to actually get into the industry”. These generally come in the form of the ‘Insight sessions’ which range from 'Hair and Make Up for Film’ (7th March 2015, 1:30PM) to ‘Script Lab’ (8th March 2015, 11:00AM). 

In the film industry, Staff points out, “the first step is the hardest and this year’s schedule is more education-based in that way – it is trying to offer tips about how to make that step. Anyone wanting to go into directing, for example, would be mad to miss out on our 'Getting Started’ event (8th March 2015, 3:30PM). The directors there have just broken into the industry and were in our shoes not that long ago!”

“Saying that,” she goes on,  “there are still a lot of talks for those with a more general interest in film; our documentary events and our Q&A’s, for example, as well as our Opening Gala with Roger Michell and Kevin Loader.” Staff’s personal highlights will be Tom Hollander's 'Acting for the Screen' (7th March 2015, 2:30PM) – “I am a big Call the Midwife Fan!” – and panel discussion ‘Still ‘Pale, Male and Stale?’: Diversity in Film and Television’ (8th March 2015, 12:30 pm). 

“And of course”, she says, “a huge part of our festival is celebrating the work of our nominees – their films are truly impressive and will be appreciated by anyone!” 

The nominees she speaks of are the best of the many short films from all over the world (“over 300 from 52 countries!”) that have been entered in Watersprite 2015. Staff praises the “high standard” of all the nominated filmmakers. The invitation-only Awards Ceremony takes place on Saturday night, with nominees “from Mexico to Israel” being flown in for the event. There are eleven prizes and the four nominees for each one will be shown over the weekend at Breakfast (7th March 2015, 10:30AM), Afternoon (7th March 2015, 2:30PM) and Dusk screenings (7th and 8th March 2015, 4:00PM).

Staff explains that she got involved with the festival partly because of her passion for film, but also because she’s “passionate about providing access and opportunity – the festival does both of these things!” 

She aptly sums up the festival as, more than anything else, a fantastic opportunity for Cambridge students and locals alike; “I can't express how lucky we are as students to have events like this on our door step. I think in our busy lives it is easy to forget how lucky we are to be able to go along and hear and potentially meet these speakers for free. People talk about how hard it is to get into the industry, but then don't take up opportunities to pitch films in front of Richard Holmes (7th March 2015, 2:30PM), or to hear Lindsay Watson talk about how to get into animation (8th March 2015, 2:30PM)! Open your eyes, come along this weekend and create opportunities for yourself.”

Whether you’re an aspiring filmmaker, interested in the more commercial aspects of the industry, a rabid film fan, or anything in between, Watersprite 2015 looks set to be a very exciting way to end your term, (or start your career).

The festival takes place at venues around town on 6th-8th March and you can register for talks here