WINCHESTER Short Film Festival returns this November with films from over 35 countries screened at six venues across the city.

Each venue for the festival, which runs from November 4 to 11, will represent a different experience for viewers, with films of a particular theme being celebrated at each.

The 2016 festival gets under way at the artcafé, with a selection of seven British and foreign films including the Spanish drama The Whole World about a young man who receives a strange request from his dead mother that will surprise the world, starring Almodovar darling Loles León (Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up!, The Bilingual Lover).

Next up on November 7 is the bespoke Winchester Hi-Fi screening with a sci-fi theme.The line-up includes the stunning Chinese animation Planet Unknown about a space rover sent to find inhabitable planets after Earth’s resources are finally depleted. Also showing will be the classy Canadian sci-fi drama Future Perfect about a time traveller who defies his orders and compromises a future he cannot un-learn, starring Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Heroes) and Robert Baker (Texas Rising, Lone Ranger, Grey’s Anatomy).

On Wednesday 8th it’s the turn of the pitch perfect loft of the newly renovated Winchester Piano Studios. In the line-up of five films are the poignant and sumptuous Spanish drama Eden Hostel that provides a poignant view on the human condition from the perspective of a statuette of the Virgin Mary in a seedy hotel, and the emotionally tense British drama Edith about a bereaved man’s struggle to free himself from the ghost of his dead wife, starring Petter Mullan (Trainspotting, Warhorse) and Michelle Fairley (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones).

On Thursday 9th, The Barn of the Railway Inn will show some fantastic underground films, including the gritty British drama Beverley, starring Vicky McClure and Kieran Hardcastle (This is England). Beverley follows a mixed race girl's struggle to carve out a sense of identity in a confusing, shifting cultural landscape in 1980’s Leicester. The screening will also include the suspense drama Eddie, about an isolated researcher who questions why he must perform endless tests on a desperate, mute and bloodied subject.

The Hampshire Records Office cinema space hosts the WSFF on Thursday 10th, with a selection of foreign and British films, including the sensual Japanese drama SOAP about a young man’s attraction to his brother’s wife, and the extraordinarily soulful Polish drama America about the loss of innocence of two young woman trying to realise their dreams in a world where truth intertwines with fiction.

The screenings finish at the iconic Winchester Discovery Centre on Friday 11th, with a selection of British and foreign films including the emotional British drama Daddy My. This short film centres on the story of an estranged father and son trying to reconnect, and stars Rory Kinnear (Skyfall, Spectre). Included in the line-up of 5 films is the dark British comedy And Then There Were Three in which sexual mores, gender politics and suburban hanky panky collide, starring Antonia Campbell-Hughes (Bright Star) and Tom Meeten (Skins, The Mighty Boosh).

The festival culminates in the black tie awards ceremony in The Performance Hall of the Winchester Discovery Centre on November 12.

Visit winchestershortfilmfestival.com