The recent spate of high-profile films, mainly Noel Clarke’s Adulthood and Raymond Stevenson’s Hip Hop Opera has encouraged organisers of the British Urban Film Festival (also known as BUFF) to offer free tickets to those under the age of 25 in an attempt to generate further interest in urban independent film & music.

Under an initiative launched by parent company Buff Enterprises, priority will be given to children, young people and families, in order to take advantage of the 750 free seats which will be made available to those attending the first event of its kind in the UK. Members of the public will also be able to apply for the free places in a telephone free-for-all. Those fortunate enough to book their seats before the deadline of Monday December the 1st will be notified by email. Over the next few weeks, New Nation, the official newspaper of the British Urban Film Festival, will be updating readers as well as visitors to its’ website with all the latest news, interviews and festival listings.

The British Urban Film Festival was first established in 2005 to profile creative work in an important and emerging genre which is not otherwise regularly seen in the capital’s cinemas. A festival spokeswoman stressed that whilst the offer of free tickets may be seen as a gimmick, the whole point of the offer was to ensure that ‘…urban independent film is made available to the widest possible audience…’ The programme to support Black film exhibition recently launched by Film London, the capital’s film and media agency, supports this belief that there is an audience now keen to see such material, as demonstrated by the summer success of Adulthood.

Beginning on December the 2nd this year’s festival line-up includes films from an array of award-winning filmmakers including Lawrence Coke, Wayne Campbell and Parmjit Singh. The event kicks off in earnest with a double-header starting with an exclusive documentary looking back over the success of Adulthood. Also showing will be the critically-acclaimed movie Swimmer, first shown at the Portobello Film Festival and directed by Naeem and Ash Mahmood. The brotherly duo will be amongst the many in attendance on opening night at The Genesis cinema in Mile End. In all, 20 films will be screened, the majority of them being hosted at The Oxford House centre in Bethnal Green on December the 3rd. Those wishing to book their free places should call the hotline on: 08712 885 785, email kate.herron@thescreen.biz or visit the website http://buffenterprises.co.uk/contact.html before the deadline of Monday the 1st of December.