Into Film Clubs
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The Into Film Festival drew to a wonderful close this week with a special pupil premiere of Disney's Zootropolis 2, and a celebration of some talented young filmmakers.
In Zootropolis 2, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde return to solve another mystery in the animal-filled city. To further celebrate the film's release, we recently launched Puzzling Partners, a brand new learning resource, created in collaboration with Disney. The resource has curriculum links to literacy, maths, and citizenship, as well as helping to develop self-awareness and teamworking skills. Plus, our Zootropolis ID competition challenges learners to imagine themselves in the world of Zootropolis 2, with great prizes to be won.
As well as the excitement of catching Zootropolis 2 before most of the UK, with representatives from Disney on hand to support their new film's release, we took the opportunity to celebrate some of the phenomenal youth-made films that Disney have supported through our Every Child a Filmmaker initiative, and by sponsoring Best Animation categories at the Into Film Awards.
Members from Pinc College in Stoke-on-Trent, who created four short films as part of an Every Child a Filmmaker programme, and two young people from Caedraw Primary School in Wales, whose film Cae the Bear won Best Animation - 5-11 at the Into Film Awards 2025, were celebrated by an audience of their peers, and had the opportunity to speak to Disney and thank them for the opportunities. We'd also like to extend our thanks to Disney for helping to inspire the next generation of young filmmakers.
The event brought this year's spectacular Into Film Festival to a close, with November seeing over 3,000 screenings and events take place across 580 cinemas around the UK, and reaching almost 400,000 young people and their educators.
From a cinema in a refurbished train station in Yorkshire, to Rathlin Island in Northern Ireland where there are more puffins than people, to our biggest event, a screening of Wicked: For Good for 800 young people at London's humongous Cineworld O2, the Festival has reached every corner of the UK. What's more, we were able to welcome 40,000 young people to the cinema for the very first time, hopefully sparking a lifelong love of film for a new generation.
Elsewhere, we opened the Festival with European premieres of Damon Gameau (2040, That Sugar Film)'s Future Council, and held several UK premieres of Australian comedy Kangaroo. We also held special UK-wide previews of hit British film I Swear as a precursor to this year's Festival.
In Glasgow and Dumfries we held screenings of Scottish animated film Tiddler, accompanied by a Scots Language workshop to help boost the local language, while in Falkirk director John McPhail and actor Sanjeev Kohli joined us to introduce their new film Grow.
We were delighted and honoured to be joined by special guest speakers throughout the Festival, with actor Letitia Wright joining us in Manchester and Sheffield for special screenings of her directorial debut Highway to the Moon; former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern joined us at a special preview of a new documentary about her time in office, Prime Minister; and director Gurinder Chadha joined us for a screening of her new Bollywood-inspired musical Christmas Karma.
We also held special screenings of brilliant independent films, including provocative and sensitive drama Brides in London, where we were joined by director Nadia Fall, actors Ebada Hassan and Safiyya Ingar, and in Cardiff, where we held a Q&A with the film's producers. We also screened unique documentary Grand Theft Hamlet, where director Pinny Grylls was on hand to explain how she staged a production of Shakespeare's play entirely within a Grand Theft Auto video game, while in Hastings we showed imaginative and informative film The Stimming Pool, which gives the neurotypical a unique insight into the neurodiverse, while also holding up a mirror for the neurodiverse to see themselves reflected in.
And with the new film now in cinemas, we also held multiple screenings of Wicked: Part One in partnership with the Anti-Bullying Alliance, including a special screening to celebrate Odd Socks Day.
Keep your eyes peeled for our next programme of free screenings, which will take place between 6-27 March 2026. Bookings will go live in January, so make sure you're subscribed to our mailing to be the first to secure your places!
The Into Film Festival is possible thanks to the support of Cinema First and multiple partners across the cinema sector.
