FRENCH silent classic La Belle et La Bete - beauty and the beast - will be screened as part of the second Hinterlands Rural Film Festival in Skipton.

Following on from this year’s first Hinterlands Festival, part of the Great Place: Lakes and Dales programme, organisers, Wild Rumpus have announced it is coming back in May, 2020.

The four day festival will once again take place in Skipton, with much of the screenings at the Plaza Cinema, and will include a diverse range of films, from fantasy classics to foreign language films and family favourites - and all with rural landscapes at their heart.

One of the highlights of the festival promises to be a theatrical extravaganza inspired by the folk horror film Midsommar. It will start with a feast, and will be followed by a procession from the Canal Basin to the Plaza to see the film - which tells the story of a group of friends who travel to Sweden and find themselves in the clutches of a pagan cult.

Also being show n will be Guillermo Del Toro’s fairytale Pan’s Labyrinth, which captivated audiences across the world for its delicate and savage depictions of nature when it was first released in 2006.

The film tells the story of young Ofelia who moves to the Spanish countryside with her mother and step-father, but ends up on a magical odyssey led by a strange faun who claims to know her destiny.

The touching and powerful coming-of-age story Dead Poets Society will be screened at the fitting location of Ermysted’s Grammar School.

Starring the late Robin Williams, the BAFTA winner tells the story of a group of boys at an American all-boys boarding school in rural Vermont who set up a night-time poetry society.

The crowd pleasing The Sound of Music, staring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, will also be played at the Plaza, as well as Jean Cocteau’s masterpiece, made in 1946, La Belle et La Bête .

A launch event is being planned for the centre of Skipton, and once again, the event is being run in collaboration with Great Place: Lakes and Dales, which uses creativity and culture to retain and attract more young people to live and work in the area.

The Hinterlands team will be at the Skipton Christmas Market on Sunday when people will be about to buy festival passes, at £50, giving access to all screenings and events and priority bookings.

Geoff Bird, the festival’s artistic director, said a festival pass was the perfect Christmas present for any film buff.

To find out more, and to buy tickets and passes, visit: hinterlandsfestival.org.uk