THE 17th annual Borderlines Film Festival box office has opened for bookings which will include two films being shown at Knighton Community Centre in March.

The first film will be screened at 7.30pm on Friday, March 8, with Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce in ‘The Wife’, a poignant, funny and emotional celebration of womanhood adapted from Meg Wolitzer’s novel about a long married couple whose lives are changed by a phone call.

It will also be shown at Bedstone and Hopton Castle Village Hall at 7.30pm on Friday, March 1.

‘Cold War’, a Polish co-production about a singer and pianist who fall in love against an oppressive cold war background, will be shown at Knighton at 7.30pm on Friday, March 15.

It will also be shown by Presteigne Screen at Presteigne Assembly Rooms at 8pm on Friday, March 1.

Eagerly-anticipated by film-goers all over the Marches, Borderlines Film Festival is now open for bookings with films being shown between March 1 and 27, at 25 venues across Powys, Shropshire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire.

Borderlines, now firmly established in the cultural calendar of the area, will comprise 256 screenings of 86 films and events with the pick of pending new releases from Britain, the US and around the world, award winners and contenders (among them, multi-BAFTA-nominated ‘Vice’, ‘A Star is Born’, ‘Cold War’ and ‘Green Book’).

The programme includes 29 previews, titles screening prior to their national release.

Festival programmer Jonny Courtney from the Independent Cinema Office, said: “We have a fantastic array of world cinema titles in the line-up, and it’s the appetite of the Borderlines audience for great cinema, past and present, that makes it such an exciting festival to programme.”

Tickets are available via the Festival Box Office at The Courtyard, Hereford, on 01432 340555, or online at www.borderlinesfilmfestival.org; and from venues on Knighton Community Centre, 07751 221487; Bedstone and Hopton Castle Village Hall 01547 530282, and Presteigne Screen 01544 260577.

Full details of the programme will be available on the Borderlines website at www.borderlinesfilmfestival.org