Get your popcorn ready... it's time for Kirkcaldy Film Festival

Kirkcaldy Film Festival is set to take centre stage again, screening everything from Buster Keaton to the BFG!

The annual event can boast a Scottish premiere, discussions with critics and directors, and special screenings to mark anniversary landmarks of some much loved classic movies.

It has again been curated by Alan Morrison, festival director, whose ideas last year included a special showing of Jaws on an outdoor screen down at the seafront!

This year he has has picked a host of films across the decades, and they will all hit the screen at the Adam Smith Theatre in a packed five-day programme which launches on Wednesday, September 14.

The festival opens with a double bill of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton at their very best.

Chaplin’s ‘The Rink’ is now 100 years old, but the comedy remains timeless, while Keaton’s ‘The General’ features some genuinely death-defying stunts.

The festival has also scored something of a coup with the Scottish premiere of ‘The Girl With All The Gifts’.

It stars Gemma Arterton as a teacher and Paddy Considine as a soldier trying to survive a futuristic wasteland while protecting a 10-year-old girl who may be the world’s only hope from a disease which turns humans into flesh-eating zombies.

It has been a huge hit with critics, and Mike Carey, author of the book on which the film is based, and producer Angus Lamont, will be at the Adam Smith for a post-screening discussion on stage on Sunday, September 18.

Other big names making appearances include local boxer Stevie Maguire who’ll chat on stage about movies and his sport after a screening of Sly Stallone’s classic film ‘Rocky’.

And for Aliens: the Directors Cut, Nigel Floyd, film critic of Time Out, will chat about his experiences interviewing its director, John Cameron.

The festival also includes short films collated by Fife Youth Arts – many of them made in the Kingdom – to showcase some of the up and coming talent in the industry.

And this year’s gala screening takes on a new look.

Out goes the black tie invite, and in comes fancy dress for a celebration of the classic ‘Carry On’ series as the theatre screens ’Carry On Screaming’.

To get into the spirit, the festival organisers are inviting cinema-goers to dress up as their favourite movie monsters!

Over the course of the festival, the films screened cover everything from drama to comedy, western, romance and even sport.

It’s an “all-out for a decade-by-decade celebration of everything that makes cinema great.”

Alan said: “One of the great successes we have had in past years has been when people come up afterwards saying it was brilliant that it was tied in with the anniversary screening of old films.

“People really seem to like the fact that they can see these old films on the big screen again, and I thought to myself how about trying to do an entire festival celebrating anniversaries of big films over the past 100 years?

“So we have an entire century of films dating back to 1916.”

Some of the films to look forward to...

The Rink (U): Charlie Chaplin at his comic best as a clumsy waiter causing chaos at the local roller rink.

The Big Sleep (U): Raymond Chandler’s crime novel provide the storyline for Bogart’s private eye Philip Marlowe.

The BFG (PG): The latest Steven Spielberg offering is the most eagerly awaited family movie of the year.

Brassed Off (15): Ewan McGregor as a young miner keeping community spirit alive through his local brass band as the pits are closing around him.

The Lives of Others (15): Life behind the Iron Curtain when a Stasi officer leads a surveillance operation on a successful East German playwright and suffers a crisis of conscience when he realises his subject is a good man.

Full listings at www.onfife.com