YOUNG people all over Basingstoke are being given the chance to take part in the world’s biggest youth film festival.

The Into Film Festival, which takes place between November 4 and 20, includes a selection of free screenings and events all over the UK aiming to use the power of film to captivate young minds and bring learning to life.

Admission is open to schools, colleges, parents and youth leaders.

Around 400,000 young people, aged from 5-19, will attend the festival to watch, make and learn through and about film.

This year, the programme features the headline themes Identity, Wellbeing and Achievement, with strands including Cultural Perspectives, Express Yourself, Love, Stop and Think, Celebrating British Film and Against all Odds.

Within these a raft of classic and popular titles – encompassing foreign language, adaptations of novels and plays, documentaries and blockbusters - will be on offer to broaden young people’s horizons and spark discussion.

Teaching resources to accompany each strand, designed to support the curricula of all four nations will also be available to download from the Into Film Festival website.

Highlights from the programme in and around Basingstoke include a pupil’s premiere of the hugely-anticipated documentary He Named Me Malala at Vue at Festival Place in Basingstoke on November 4 at 10am.

Also screening across Basingstoke will be a selection of films including Annie, Far from the Madding Crowd, Penguins of Madagascar, Night At The Museum: Secret of the Tomb, Into the Woods, Shaun the Sheep, The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, Everest, Jurassic World, The Sound of Music, Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder, Big Hero 6, Dolphin Tale 2, Insurgent, Dolphin Tale 2, Minions and Turist (Force Majeure).

Actor and Into Film ambassador Michael Sheen commented: "When you're watching a film it feels like you're being entertained but at the same time it's a window to the world of other cultures, other possibilities.

“The Into Film Festival is a great thing for young people to go to as together with their peers they can sit in a cinema watching a whole range of films, films that they usually wouldn't have access to or wouldn't choose for themselves.”

The Into Film Festival is hosted by education charity Into Film and supported by Cinema First and the BFI through Lottery funding.

Tickets are now available to book online at IntoFilm.org/festival.