AN ACTOR turned playwright turned screenwriter will be answering questions at a town’s inaugural film festival.

Alexi Kaye who penned the screenplay for the Helen Mirren movie Woman in Gold (12A) will be speaking following a screening of the film as part of the first Stockbridge Film Festival (November14-20).

The writer, whose mother Janet Smith lives in Stockbridge, will be at the town hall next Wednesday (November 18).

Alexi, whose father is Greek, was born and raised in Athens, studied English and American Literature at Boston University and moved to Britain at the age of 22 to attend drama school. He was an actor for many years before turning to writing.

As an actor he worked with the The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal Court and Chichester Festival Theatre.

His first produced play The Pride, which premiered at The Royal Court Theatre in 2008, won numerous awards the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre and the John Whiting Award for Best New Play. Alexi was also awarded the Critics Circle Prize for Most Promising Playwright.

Woman in Gold, his first film was released earlier this year. It is based on the true story of the an elderly Jewish refugee (played by Helen Mirren) living in Los Angeles, who, together with her young lawyer, (played by Ryan Reynolds) takes on the Austrian government in a bid to reclaim Gustav Klimt’s iconic painting of her aunt – Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer – which was stolen from her relatives by the Nazis.

It is produced by BBC Films and The Weinstein Company and stars Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds.

Alexi’s fourth play, Bracken Moor, premiered at the Tricycle Theatre in London in June 2013 and he is currently adapting it into a film for Working Title.

Paul Kidd, of Stockbridge Community Cinema, said that once Alexi had agreed to appear at the screening it was decided to build a film festival around the event.

The festival, sponsored by the Grosvenor Hotel, features six films most of which have garnered awards and nominations.

The week kicks off on Saturday (November 14) with the Argentine comedy drama Wild Tales (15), six stories concerned with the joys of gaining revenge, which was nominated for 2015 Oscar for Best Foreign language film.

The following evening there will be a screening of Amy (15) a documentary on the life of doomed singer Amy Winehouse. On Monday an avalanche turns family relationships upside down in Golden Globe nominee Force Majeure (15).

Dark Horse (PG), is Tuesday’s offering – this documentary about a syndicate from a Welsh working men’s club who breed a racehorse galloped away with the Audience Award and the World Cinema Documentary award at the Sundance Film Festival.

Another 2015 academy award nominee for Best Foreign Language film, Timbuktu (12A) closes the festival. This drama centres on a cattle herder and his family living in the dunes of Timbuktu who find their quiet lives destroyed by Jihadists determined to control their faith.

All screenings are at 7.30pm. Tickets, priced £6, are available from John Robinson, Garden Inn and Wine Utopia (Stockbridge / Winchester) or online at the cinema's website.