Mansfield Town Film Festival

Mansfield Town Film Festival ⚒️The Home of Working Class Talent
🏆BIFA Qualifying Festival
📆Festival: 2027 Dates Coming Soon
🎗️Charity Number: 1218992

06/10/2026

MTFF26 FILMMAKERS, WE NEED YOUR HELP! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

We’ve been absolutely blown away by the lovely messages and glowing 5-star reviews coming in from filmmakers following MTFF26!

As our Assistant Festival Director for Programming, Kin Bennett-Ross, explains in this video, we’re now on a mission to break into the Top 100 Best Reviewed Film Festivals on FilmFreeway, out of more than 14,000 festivals on the platform!🏆

For a little festival built in Mansfield to be up there alongside some of the biggest and most established festivals in the country would be a massive achievement, and a real testament to the experience we’re trying to create for filmmakers.

If you had a film selected for MTFF26, or any of our previous editions, we’d absolutely love it if you could leave us a public review on FilmFreeway.❤️

It only takes a couple of minutes, but it makes a huge difference to our visibility, helps other filmmakers discover us, and supports our ambition to keep growing MTFF.

Just remember, the review needs to be left by the person who originally submitted your film through FilmFreeway!

To everyone who’s already left us such lovely feedback, thank you. We’ve been reading every single review, and it genuinely means the world to our little team.

We’ve always believed that filmmakers deserve to feel properly welcomed, celebrated and supported when they come to Mansfield.

Now let’s see if we can put our little working-class town amongst the very best film festivals in the world for filmmaker experience!

Top 100, here we come!🎬💙

06/10/2026

MTFF26 FILMMAKERS, WE NEED YOUR HELP! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

We’ve been absolutely blown away by the lovely messages and glowing 5-star reviews coming in from filmmakers following MTFF26!

As our Assistant Festival Director for Programming, Kin Bennett-Ross, explains in this video, we’re now on a mission to break into the Top 100 Best Reviewed Film Festivals on FilmFreeway, out of more than 14,000 festivals on the platform!🏆

For a little festival built in Mansfield to be up there alongside some of the biggest and most established festivals in the country would be a massive achievement, and a real testament to the experience we’re trying to create for filmmakers.

If you had a film selected for MTFF26, or any of our previous editions, we’d absolutely love it if you could leave us a public review on FilmFreeway.❤️

It only takes a couple of minutes, but it makes a huge difference to our visibility, helps other filmmakers discover us, and supports our ambition to keep growing MTFF.

Just remember, the review needs to be left by the person who originally submitted your film through FilmFreeway!

👉 https://filmfreeway.com/MansfieldTownFilmFestival

To everyone who’s already left us such lovely feedback, thank you. We’ve been reading every single review, and it genuinely means the world to our little team.

We’ve always believed that filmmakers deserve to feel properly welcomed, celebrated and supported when they come to Mansfield.

Now let’s see if we can put our little working-class town amongst the very best film festivals in the world for filmmaker experience!

Top 100, here we come!🎬💙

05/10/2026

We’re so proud to be a film festival that means so much to the community 💙🎬

From the filmmakers who trust us to screen their work, to our audience who love celebrating independent film, to the volunteers and partners who work so hard to make our festival so special - each one of you were part of why MTFF26 was described as brilliant, inspiring and unique.

03/10/2026

Brighton Rocks is proud to showcase films in this category as part of our commitment to supporting filmmakers and amplifying stories and perspectives that are too often underrepresented on screen. 🤎

Congratulations to all the filmmakers whose work was celebrated - and to the fantastic winner of Best Film in this category - Why We Cry by Nadine Coulson! 🎬🏆

02/10/2026

It’s been a week since we opened the Mansfield Palace Theatre doors for MTFF26 🤩

It’s been such a HUGE honour to celebrate our biggest festival yet with such an enthusiastic bunch of guests, filmmakers, partners and volunteers coming from the local area and beyond to enjoy independent film 🎥 🍿

This year alone has been unbelievable.

In 2026, we were: granted BIFA qualifying status, became a charity, launched our screening programme Reel Futures to support young people’s access to the industry, expanded our team, saw our biggest number of submissions AND guests at our festival weekend, and we were recognised by Elliot Grove (the founder of Raindance Film Festival and BIFA itself!!)

So what’s in store for next year?!? 👀👀

We’re hoping our festival snowballs in terms of the positive impact it has on the local community, and for filmmakers - as well as the guests and volunteers who are a part of it. We want to keep on being that festival that really gives back 🫂

We’ve loved having you join us for our MTFF26 journey, and we’d love to see you all again as we build up towards MTFF27 🤩

01/10/2026

🏆THE MANSFIELD FILM AWARDS 2026🎬✨

What a way to bring MTFF26 to a close.

Our final night at Mansfield Palace Theatre was all about celebrating the filmmakers, performers and creatives who made this year’s festival so special and handing out the coveted Mansfield Film Awards to some truly incredible work.

Here’s just a glimpse of what the night looked like…🥂🎥

A huge congratulations to all of our 2026 winners:

Best International Short
🏆 The Funeral Rehearsal — Directed by Ronald Zuidinga

Working Class Voices
🏆 Friday is Mushroom Soup — Directed by Arnold T Rice & Katy Trevor

Best Student Short
🏆 A Rose for Iris — Directed by Abolfazl Talooni

Local Voices
🏆 Between Two Wheels — Directed by Ryan Goff

Best Documentary
🏆 The Life Across the Way — Directed by Loren Hobbs

LGBTQIA+ Voices
🏆 CLUTTER — Directed by James Card

Best Director
🏆 My Friend Songzhi — Xia Fan

Women’s Voices
🏆 Dirt — Directed by Isabella Speaight

Best Narrative Short
🏆 Rule, Britannia — Directed by Max Fisher

Disabled/Neuro-diverse Voices
🏆 Why We Cry — Directed by Nadine Coulson

Best Original Score
🏆 233 Years of Luck — Penny James & Matt Tighe

Best Music Video
🏆 UGH — Directed by Harry Tomlin

Best Animated Short
🏆 Tidy Away — Directed by Chris Cosentino

Best Cinematography
🏆 Shards Of Us — Dom Hopking

Best Editing
🏆 Dead on Distribution — Alasdair Gretton

Best Performance
🏆 The Orphan — Makai Fray

Heart of Mansfield Award
🏆 Friday is Mushroom Soup — Directed by Arnold T Rice & Katy Trevor

Every category was packed with brilliant work, and we’re so proud of every nominee who shared their film with us this year.

The entire awards ceremony was professionally filmed and will be released in full on our YouTube channel in the coming weeks.

We’ll also be sending each winner their own individual award clip, including their acceptance speech, so they can keep it, share it and celebrate the moment with their own audiences too.❤️

For now, enjoy a few highlights from a very special night.

And once again, congratulations to every filmmaker, every nominee and every winner

29/09/2026

And just like that…MTFF26 came to an end on Sunday! 🎬💙

Our final day was packed from start to finish with brilliant films, big conversations, hands-on experiences and one very emotional awards night to round off an unforgettable weekend.

We kicked things off with Out Of Frame and Still Growing, bringing together stories about identity, grief, climate, family, disability and finding your place in the world - including You Told Us About The Weather starring Michael Sheen, Voice Shift, Lost In The Sauce, Big Steps, Tidy Away and more.

We also had a last-minute change of plan, with local stuntman John B Tannen stepping in to deliver a brilliant, hands-on stunt workshop - giving our audience the chance to get involved and learn a few tricks of the trade themselves. 🙌🎥

The afternoon continued with Every Version Of Her, exploring everything from contraception and mental health to motherhood, grief and women finding their voice, before our MTFF26 Award Nominees Panel brought filmmakers together to talk about their work, their journeys and what it meant to be recognised this year.

Then, after one final round of screenings including Life, Interrupted and Normal Service Will Not Resume, it was time for the big one… 🏆🥂

The Mansfield Film Awards 2026 brought filmmakers, guests, volunteers and supporters together one final time to celebrate the incredible work shown across the weekend and hand out the coveted Mannys to this year’s winners.

Three days. More than 120 films. Filmmakers from across the UK and around the world. VR, Q&As, workshops, panels, socials, awards… and a Palace Theatre full of people who came together because they love film.

What a way to finish. ❤️

A huge thank you to every filmmaker, audience member, volunteer, trustee, partner, sponsor and guest who helped make MTFF26 what it was.

We’re exhausted. We’re proud. We’re already missing it. 🎬💙

Here’s how our final day looked…

Let us know how much you enjoyed your time at MTFF: https://online1.snapsurveys.com/kdur79?A=SPOT&P=MID16

28/09/2026

🎬 A SURPRISE WE’LL NEVER FORGET…

On Sunday night, we had one final surprise for our Mansfield Film Awards audience at MTFF26.

A special video message from Elliot Grove - founder of Raindance Film Festival and the British Independent Film Awards.

To be honest, we’re still taking it in.

Unbeknownst to us, Elliot has been following what we’ve been building here in Mansfield and got in touch to offer his support for the festival, our filmmakers and - in particular - our commitment to championing working-class voices in cinema.

In his message, Elliot spoke about the importance of what MTFF is doing and, in a moment that meant an enormous amount to us, even turned the tables and asked us for our thoughts and advice on reaching and supporting working-class filmmakers.

When the founder of Raindance and BIFA knows what’s happening at a film festival in Mansfield, we must be doing something right. ❤️

Elliot didn’t stop there.

He also generously offered a £500 Raindance Certificate to the winner of this year’s Working Class Voices Award - which went to:

🏆FRIDAY IS MUSHROOM SOUP
Directed by Arnold T. Rice
Written by Katy Trevor

A huge congratulations to Katy, Arnold and the entire team behind the film.

We hope you make full use of this incredible opportunity, and we very much hope this isn’t the last time we see your work on a festival screen.

To Elliot - thank you.

For taking the time to follow what we’re doing, for recognising why working-class representation matters, for supporting one of our filmmakers in such a tangible way, and for giving our audience a moment none of us were expecting.

MTFF was founded on the belief that filmmakers shouldn’t have to come from the right postcode, know the right people or leave towns like Mansfield before somebody takes their ambitions seriously.

Having someone who has spent decades building one of the world’s best-known independent film festivals recognise that mission means more than we can really put into words.

Mansfield to Raindance next…?👀🎬

Watch Elliot’s full message below.❤️

Love your time at MTFF? Let us know!

https://online1.snapsurveys.com/kdur79?A=SPOT&P=MID16

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