Young Adult

Emily Brontë’s classic Wuthering Heights has inspired more than 30 film and TV adaptations, most recently Emerald Fennell’s film, which hit UK cinemas this year. Discover Andrea Arnold’s take on the story in this screening of her 2011 version, starring Kaya Scodelario and James Howson – the first Black actor to play Heathcliff.

The film tells the story of a homeless boy named Heathcliff, taken in by Earnshaw, a benevolent Yorkshire farmer. Heathcliff develops a passionate relationship with the farmer’s daughter, Catherine, inspiring the mistrust of his son. When Earnshaw passes away, the three must finally confront their intense feelings.

Directed by Andrea Arnold (2011). Film duration: 2 hours 9 minutes. Certificate 15.

Come on a fascinating tour of the night sky and hear the stories of how the stars have shaped us through the ages. Whether a budding astronomer or an armchair stargazer, this will make you want to rush outside and look up in search for the curve of the Milky Way.

Dr Sheila Kanani MBE demystifies the rich tapestry of stars in our skies and reveals how stars have helped people to explore and understand the Earth over time. And, thrillingly, she shows what you’d see if you could jump on a spacecraft and explore these galaxies yourself.

The Five is a YA novel with a difference. It follows a year in the interconnected lives of five very diverse teenagers who forge a singular bond at their secondary school in north-west Wales. As they navigate the joys and tribulations of what makes them different as individuals, their newfound community is both tested and strengthened.

The Welsh language edition, Y Pump, has won multiple awards. English language editor Elgan Rhys and translator Mared Roberts discuss the book’s innovative authorship process, which paired established authors with emerging young writers who brought lived experience to the characters, creating a distinctive and relatable depiction of young adult life in Wales today.

A screening of Whit Stillman’s elegant adaptation of Jane Austen’s lesser-known novella. American sophisticate Stillman followed his comeback Damsels in Distress with a film at once unexpected and oh-so-fitting. With this delicious adaptation of Austen, he proves as adroit at chronicling the wry social scheming of the Regency as he did young Manhattanites and disco revellers.

In Love & Friendship, young widow Susan Vernon visits her in-laws’ estate while waiting for social chatter about her personal indiscretions to pass. While there, she decides to secure a husband for herself and her reluctant daughter. Enlisting the help of an old friend, she attracts the attention of many interesting men.

Danny Robins is an award-winning writer, broadcaster and journalist. He created hit BBC podcasts The Battersea Poltergeist, Uncanny and The Witch Farm, as well as the Olivier Award-nominated West End play 2:22 – A Ghost Story​. He has written various shows for TV and radio, including the BAFTA-nominated series Young Dracula for BBC1​ and the TV series of Uncanny ​for BBC2.

Danny will draw on his extensive experience to offer invaluable insights and advice for anyone interested in writing for radio, TV and stage – and about the paranormal. He talks to historian Janina Ramirez.

This event is one of a Hay Festival series of sessions delivered by inspiring producers and practitioners from the creative industries, giving their insights, experience and advice on progression in their field.

An evening showcasing the best in contemporary poetry with award-winning poets Tishani Doshi and Len Pennie. Doshi performs a new piece combining poetry and moving image. Her most recent collection Egrets, While War is a lyric guide to grief and resilience, examining environmental loss, ancestral memory and more, with birds appearing throughout as subjects, symbols and messengers.

Pennie, who writes in both Scots and English, brings her charismatic presence and powerful Scots language delivery. She presents work from poyums annaw, a defiant and trailblazing collection of work that tackles ideas of patriarchy, gender-based violence and injustice.

Step into the magical world of Bird & Blend Tea Co., discover the secrets of tea mixology and create your own perfect blend in an immersive and interactive Tea Mixology Experience led by an expert mixologist. This hands-on workshop invites you to taste up to six unique blends and test your tea knowledge with an engaging and fun tea matching game.

With expert guidance, you’ll get to craft two custom tea blends to take home and pair with your next fave book! You’ll also learn about different tea types and brewing tips to enhance your tea-making ritual at home. There’ll be an opportunity to ask questions, plus you’ll get a goody bag with free samples. Visit the Bird & Blend Tea Co. stand afterwards for a free gift with purchase (find a special token in your goody bag). Book now – it’s going to be TEArrific!

Kiri Pritchard-McLean is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, broadcaster and local authority foster carer. She’s a regular on TV shows such as Live at the Apollo, QI, HIGNFY and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Kiri will draw on her extensive experience to offer invaluable insights and advice for anyone interested in comedy writing, stand-up and broadcast media.

Stephen Fry’s directorial debut is a dapper look at the swish society circles of pre-war London. Fizzing with wit and insight, this frolicking adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies brims with well-polished pleasures.

In 1930s England, a group of reckless socialites dominate national gossip. Among them, aspiring novelist Adam is trying to raise enough money to marry Nina. While his attempts are constantly thwarted, his friends are slowly on the road to destruction in their search for newer and faster sensations.

Directed by Stephen Fry (2003). Film duration: 1 hour 42 minutes. Certificate 15.

Sing for your life! Join best-selling novelist and Stonewall role model Juno Dawson as she introduces Survival Show, her gripping new YA thriller set in the dark and exploitative world of the music industry and reality TV, where contestants have to literally sing for their lives.

Juno talks to Boo La Croux (Miss Drag UK 2021), a farmer/drag queen based in Herefordshire. They’ll discuss everything from Juno’s pop super-fandom and the real K-Pop band who helped inspire her new story, to why she’s thrilled to be back in dystopia and the full-circle moment that brings her back to writing about music.

Comedian-who-cooks George Egg wants you to play with your food – to make a Big Mac out of mackerel, dahl out of baked beans and brownies out of Twiglets. Talking to comedian, satirist and writer Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Egg will share some of the stories and snob-snubbing mash-ups featured in The Snack Hacker, his new cookbook that breaks all the rules.

Beloved by everyone from fellow funnyman James Acaster to chef Nigella Lawson (really), the book is a joyful celebration of food and a reminder that cooking shouldn’t be serious. Whether you’re more crabstick than caviar, or prefer a Beaufort to a Babybel, this event is where the culinary high and low brow collide.

The Brazilian Ambassador to the UK, Antonio Patriota, introduces this screening of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s neo-noir political thriller about a man attempting to flee persecution and resist an authoritarian regime – the film won Mendonça Filho Best Director at Cannes.

A university professor travels from São Paulo to the seaside city of Recife during Carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son. He soon finds out he’s been tailed and spied on by neighbours in his new refuge, leaving him no possible escape from the tentacles of corruption.

Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho (2025). Film duration 2 hours 41 minutes. Certificate 15.

Step into the magical world of Bird & Blend Tea Co., discover the secrets of tea mixology and create your own perfect blend in an immersive and interactive Tea Mixology Experience led by an expert mixologist. This hands-on workshop invites you to taste up to six unique blends and test your tea knowledge with an engaging and fun tea matching game.

With expert guidance, you’ll get to craft two custom tea blends to take home and pair with your next fave book! You’ll also learn about different tea types and brewing tips to enhance your tea-making ritual at home. There’ll be an opportunity to ask questions, plus you’ll get a goody bag with free samples. Visit the Bird & Blend Tea Co. stand afterwards for a free gift with purchase (find a special token in your goody bag). Book now – it’s going to be TEArrific!

A screening of New Queer Cinema troublemaker Gregg Araki’s incendiary yet sensitive tale. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the film busts open the dark secrets of the American heartland, and stages an unforgettable reckoning with trauma. One of the best coming-of-age films of the 2000s.

In Mysterious Skin, Brian Lackey is a young man who went missing for five hours when he was eight, an event he’s convinced was an alien abduction. In the same small Kansas town, teenage hustler Neil McCormick is a confused outsider with a dark past. Both young men pursue a self-destructive path that will lead them toward each other.

The acclaimed marital drama from Andrew Haigh, in which the atmospheric Norfolk Broads form a potent backdrop to the devastating portrait of a once-solid marriage plunged into crisis. Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay both won Silver Bears for their extraordinary, understated performances.

In 45 Years, it’s one week until Kate and Geoff’s 45th anniversary, and a huge party is being planned. But then a letter arrives for Geoff. The body of Katya, his first love, has been discovered frozen and immaculately preserved in the glaciers of the Swiss Alps. Kate becomes obsessed with Geoff’s past.

“A deceptively simple and richly disorienting glance into the abyss” – The Guardian

Step into the magical world of Bird & Blend Tea Co., discover the secrets of tea mixology and create your own perfect blend in an immersive and interactive Tea Mixology Experience led by an expert mixologist. This hands-on workshop invites you to taste up to six unique blends and test your tea knowledge with an engaging and fun tea matching game.

With expert guidance, you’ll get to craft two custom tea blends to take home and pair with your next fave book! You’ll also learn about different tea types and brewing tips to enhance your tea-making ritual at home. There’ll be an opportunity to ask questions, plus you’ll get a goody bag with free samples. Visit the Bird & Blend Tea Co. stand afterwards for a free gift with purchase (find a special token in your goody bag). Book now – it’s going to be TEArrific!

Jack Thorne is a ​groundbreaking playwright and BAFTA-winning screenwriter. His work is widely acclaimed and includes stage plays Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and The Motive and the Cue, television series Adolescence, His Dark Materials and This is England ’86/’88/’90, and films The Swimmers, The Aeronauts and Wonder. Jack will draw on his extensive experience to offer invaluable insights and advice on writing for stage and screen. He talks to BBC broadcaster Kirsty Lang.

This event is one of a Hay Festival series of sessions delivered by inspiring producers and practitioners from the creative industries, giving their insights, experience and advice on progression in their field.

Crime titles dominate the best-seller lists. Crime dramas fill our screens. And the biggest TV show of the year has us all rooting for deceit, deception and dastardly duplicity against the honesty of the faithful. We bring together a round table of our own to analyse the irresistible pull of the villain and what makes a good liar – with sports presenter Clare Balding, broadcaster David Olusoga and crime author Harriet Tyce talking to psychologist Philippa Perry.

Sort your clues from your red herrings! Holly Jackson discusses her breakout YA mystery novel, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, adapted into an acclaimed six-part television series for BBC/Netflix, with writer and podcaster Andrew Hunter Murray.

A compelling murder mystery, the novel features a likeable teenage sleuth out to crack a cold case as part of her homework assignment. The twists, shocks and red herrings are many, but never allowed to overshadow the core relationships. Holly will discuss adapting the story into six episodes – the series won praise for its fast pacing and for honouring the source material – and how the characters of Pip and Ravi were brought to life by stars Emma Myers and Zain Iqbal. A second series, focusing on the next book Good Girl, Bad Blood, is scheduled for late 2025, co-written by Holly herself.

A tantalising opportunity to hear from a writer at the top of his game. Jack Thorne won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for writing Netflix’s global hit, Adolescence, and changed the national conversation about social media and toxic masculinity in the process. His work across TV, film and the stage – most recently Lord of the Flies for the BBC – is bold, brilliant and fearless. Hear first-hand from a writer shaping the stories of our time, in conversation with ITV News presenter Julie Etchingham.

Discover the hidden world of queer history and the forgotten queer heroes whose legacy lives on with our panel of experts. In this conversation with Sacha Coward, writers Emily Garside and Jason Okundaye discuss the stories they have uncovered in the course of their writing, the importance of queer history to our cultural landscape, and the people they wish everyone knew about.

Garside’s Rainbow Wales: Queer Icons Past and Present is an exploration of the household names and hidden icons who have shaped their fields and driven forward queer representation in Wales. Okundaye’s Revolutionary Acts: Love & Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain looks at an elder generation of Black gay men, as he seeks to reconcile the Black and gay narratives of Britain. Coward’s Queer as Folklore: The Hidden Queer History of Myths and Monsters travels across centuries and continents to investigate the queer history of different mythic and folkloric characters.

Radically reimagining the nature-or-nurture novel, director Lynne Ramsay – and star Tilda Swinton – transform the text of Lionel Shriver’s polarising book into a chilling film rightfully venerated for its unforgettable visual language.

Eva puts her ambitions and career aside to give birth to Kevin. The relationship between mother and son is difficult from the very first years. When he does something irrational and unforgivable in the eyes of the community, Eva grapples with her own feelings of grief and responsibility.

Ride a rollercoaster of twists and turns, encountering secrets, lies, murder and money, in this discussion about The Heirs, an utterly addictive murder mystery.

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé is author of the award-winning YA novel Ace of Spades, an unputdownable high-octane thriller which takes a powerful look at institutionalised racism. Ace of Spades won the Books Are My Bag Reader’s Award for Young Adult Fiction, was a Carnegie Medal nominee, and a shortlisted British Book of the Year.

Faridah will talk to Louie Stowell, author of the Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good series, about her journey as a writer, and the themes and characters within her novels, including the Button heirs, the five genius children of infamous (and now murdered) billionaire Leontes Button, adopted and trained under the ‘Button Method’ so that they’ve had no choice but to be brilliant.

A screening of Park Chan Wook’s adaptation of Donald E Westlake’s 1997 horror thriller The Ax. The South Korean director brings his at times brutal black humour to this story about how modernisation dehumanises and destroys people.

When a happy family man is dismissed after 25 years of loyal service at a paper company, he finds the perfect solution to land his next role: truly eliminate the competition.

Understanding the need for and art of protest has never been more important, as across the world people stand up against injustice. Graphic novelists Scarlett and Sophie Rickard and Myfanwy Tristram discuss writing about protest, the link between art and activism, and why the comic book is the perfect medium to discuss raising our voices against injustice.

This Slavery by the Rickards is adapted from a novel by radical author Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, who was the first working-class woman to have a novel published in Britain. It tells the story of sisters Rachel and Hester Martin, one of whom agitates for reform, while the other submits to the slavery of a patriarchal marriage. For Noisy Valley, Tristram visited the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, inviting people to recount their memories of the times they’d refused to take things lying down.

Wren James introduces their debut graphic novel, a funny and uplifting take on the ‘chosen one’ trope. In The Victors, Wren explores what happens after the chosen one has saved the world. In this interactive session they’ll discuss the process of creating an illustrated novel in collaboration with the artist, and give a crash course in visual storytelling, from comic book scripts to their work in a TV writer’s room on Netflix’s Heartstopper.

Wren is the award-winning author of many YA novels, including The Loneliest Girl in the Universe (previously published as Lauren James).

Can humour help us understand our family histories? Stop-motion animator and writer Astrid Goldsmith talks to Donut Squad cartoonist Neill Cameron about family feuds, buried secrets and the unavoidable life admin after death, as explored in her debut graphic memoir, The Crystal Vase. Already an award-winning graphic storyteller, Goldsmith has an extraordinary talent for turning the heaviest moments in life into something funny, beautiful and bittersweet.

When her grandmother dies, it’s down to Goldsmith and her father to hire a van, drive to Germany and sort through her belongings. Family demands clash with a lifetime of clutter as they sort the heirlooms from the odds and ends, finding hidden histories and stories of survival among it all – from Nazi Germany to colonial Africa.

A screening of Lynne Ramsay’s uncompromising portrait of a woman on the edge. Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson in a frenzied pas de deux, Die My Love inflames the exposed nerves of delirium and desire.

Grace and her partner Jackson move into an old country house. She pursues her dream of writing, and the couple welcome a baby soon after. However, with Jackson frequently absent, and the pressures of domestic life weighing on her, Grace begins to unravel, leaving a path of destruction in her wake.

Directed by Lynne Ramsay (2025). Film duration: 1 hour 59 minutes. Certificate 15.

Join romance author Beth Reekles, creator of YA hit sensation The Kissing Booth, as she takes us through a fan-tastic journey into the world of fandoms, nerd culture and what it means to find a community where you belong – and, of course, that all important, fascinating insight into becoming a published author!

In Beth’s new novel For Real This Time, misfit and hardcore fangirl Anissa is finally coming out of her shell. She’s officially part of the group chat with the girls from college, and she’s even managed to bag work experience on the set of her favourite TV show. Things couldn’t be going better – until she meets the hot new actor behind her favourite character, and gets totally starstruck. Anissa’s about to realise that sometimes getting lost in the fantasy isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be…

Step into the magical world of Bird & Blend Tea Co., discover the secrets of tea mixology and create your own perfect blend in an immersive and interactive Tea Mixology Experience led by an expert mixologist. This hands-on workshop invites you to taste up to six unique blends and test your tea knowledge with an engaging and fun tea matching game.

With expert guidance, you’ll get to craft two custom tea blends to take home and pair with your next fave book! You’ll also learn about different tea types and brewing tips to enhance your tea-making ritual at home. There’ll be an opportunity to ask questions, plus you’ll get a goody bag with free samples. Visit the Bird & Blend Tea Co. stand afterwards for a free gift with purchase (find a special token in your goody bag). Book now – it’s going to be TEArrific!

Jay Hunt, Creative Director for Apple TV+ in Europe and chair of both the BFI and Hay Festival, will draw on her extensive experience to offer invaluable insights and advice for a career in TV production.

Before joining Apple, Hunt was Chief Creative Officer of Channel 4. She has also served as Controller of BBC One and Director of Programmes at Channel 5. In 2023, she was named one of the Top Twenty Most Powerful Women in Global Entertainment by The Hollywood Reporter.

Former A&E doctor and leading mental health advocate, Dr Alex George, joins comedian Sara Pascoe to explore the perennial question: Am I normal? Together, they tackle the uncertainties and anxieties so many of us share about our bodies, minds, and emotions – from self-image and relationships to mental wellbeing in a digital age. Blending humour, honesty and empathy, this very personal conversation offers practical wisdom and reassurance in a world obsessed with comparison. This event is for anyone feeling the pressures of modern life, seeking inspiration and laughter in equal measure.

A middle-aged woman obsessed with pickling, body painting and taxidermy is an unlikely star, but thanks to a BAFTA-winning animated film, Beryl is just that. Film director, animator and Beryl’s co-creator Joanna Quinn takes us behind the scenes of the 2021 film Affairs of the Art, and explains the creative process behind animation.

Joanna will give an entertaining insight into her creative process including a range of sketches, storyboards and final artwork for Beryl’s creation. She will also illustrate live in this event, bringing her dynamic and vivacious character to life before your eyes.

A screening of Argentine auteur Lucrecia Martel’s ingenious adaptation of the existentialist novel Zama. Frenzied first-person narration transforms to become a cinematic fugue state in this singular and stupefying period drama, and Martel inserts her own incisive commentary on colonialism and masculinity.

An 18th-century Spanish magistrate is eternally languishing in anticipation for a transfer from the outpost to which he has been relegated. When his last hope of departure comes to naught, he joins an expedition to track down Vicuña Porto, a legendary outlaw who may or may not exist.

In Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation, the character Kaufman is a confused LA screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald. While struggling to adapt the latest book by Susan Orlean, Kaufman’s life spins from pathetic to bizarre.

As a screenwriter, Kaufman’s style of reality-bending comedy made him a superstar. With Adaptation, he turned a case of writer’s block into a brilliantly weird and weirdly touching comic tribute to living life as a movie – and earned an Oscar nod for both himself and his imaginary twin!

Amol Rajan kicks off a bold campaign to get young people talking. Improving a child’s speaking skills is proven to directly improve their life chances, and the biggest transformations can be seen in children from the poorest backgrounds. Rajan reveals his own oracy experiment and is joined by some surprise guests in his mission to help those from the toughest beginnings find a better life through the power of speaking.

Step into a mystical fae world with Welsh author Anna Fiteni as she takes you on a journey through the history and fantasy that shaped her homegrown YA debut novel, The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire.

Lush, romantic and hypnotic, Fiteni’s whimsical tale finds sensible Sabrina Parry drawn into a world of disarmingly attractive faeries after her sister vanishes in the woods. Budding writers and romantasy readers will love this event, as Fiteni offers practical writing tips, imagines a snapshot of Wales’s enchanting history, and takes a deep dive into the global influence of Welsh fantasy.

Paterson Joseph is an actor​ and author​. He is known for extensive theatre work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and acclaimed screen roles in Peep Show, Vigil and Wonka. Paterson will draw on his extensive experience to offer invaluable insights and advice for anyone interested in a career in performance. He talks to comedian and actress Cariad Lloyd.

This event is one of a Hay Festival series of sessions delivered by inspiring producers and practitioners from the creative industries, giving their insights, experience and advice on progression in their field.

Tomas Alfredson’s Swedish horror/romance was adapted by John Ajvide Lindqvist from his 2004 novel. Oskar, a bullied 12-year-old, strikes up a friendship with his new neighbour, the mysterious and moody Eli. Initially reserved, a sweet romance blossoms between them. But a dark, macabre secret revealing Eli’s connection to a string of bloody local murders threatens everything.

Join Bea Fitzgerald, Tiktok star and Sunday Times best-selling author of Girl, Goddess, Queen, as she talks about her latest novel A Beautiful Evil – a romantic reimagining of the myth of Pandora, the first ever woman, in which love may very well be the end of the world.

We’ll discuss our favourite romantasy tropes, reimagine myths for a young adult audience and connect with feminist themes in ancient tales. This event is for myth lovers and newbies alike, although vendettas against Zeus are highly encouraged.

In this exclusive and magical event, two titans of fantasy fiction dive into the rise of the genre, its huge popularity on TikTok, and the power of otherworldly narratives. Best-selling author of The Bone Season Samantha Shannon discusses her latest book – from a series inspired by the legend of George and the Dragon. She’s joined by fantasy novelist Saara El-Arifi (Faebound), whose newest book is a groundbreaking exploration of Cleopatra in her own words. Together they celebrate fantasy fiction and interrogate what fantasy reveals about us all. No dragons here, but this event will be fire.

A space for young, emerging artists to share their work with Hay Festival audiences. Spanning a diverse range of art forms, The Platform aims to help promote and develop outstanding young creative artists aged between 21 and 28 who are at the start of their careers. Join us to discover and support some of the best young talent, and look out for their work across the Festival site.

The celebrated poet talks about and performs from her new collection exploring dyke counterculture and the queer underground. Through a cast of characters who meet in the Maryville butch bar over the course of many decades, Joelle Taylor examines queer class politics, the pain of oppression and the beauty and intimacy of community

This is a chance to see one of our best contemporary poets talking about and performing her work. Taylor is author of four collections of poetry and one novel. She won the TS Eliot Prize and the Polar Book Prize for her collection C+NTO & Othered Poems.

Step into the magical world of Bird & Blend Tea Co., discover the secrets of tea mixology and create your own perfect blend in an immersive and interactive Tea Mixology Experience led by an expert mixologist. This hands-on workshop invites you to taste up to six unique blends and test your tea knowledge with an engaging and fun tea matching game.

With expert guidance, you’ll get to craft two custom tea blends to take home and pair with your next fave book! You’ll also learn about different tea types and brewing tips to enhance your tea-making ritual at home. There’ll be an opportunity to ask questions, plus you’ll get a goody bag with free samples. Visit the Bird & Blend Tea Co. stand afterwards for a free gift with purchase (find a special token in your goody bag). Book now – it’s going to be TEArrific!

From Sappho to Virginia Woolf and James Baldwin, LGBTQ+ writers have told their stories throughout history – excavating the queer experience and laying a foundation for the writers of today. Santanu Bhattacharya, Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Joelle Taylor talk to actor and writer Carys Eleri about the stories that shaped them, finding (or not finding) themselves in the characters they came across growing up, and their journeys to writing.

Bhattacharya’s Deviants is about three generations of men from the same family, all dealing with social taboos and laws criminalising homosexuality, and the legacy they leave. Millwood-Hargrave’s Almost Life is about a couple whose love story spans decades and time together and apart. Taylor’s new poetry collection Maryville explores dyke counterculture through a cast of characters who meet in a butch bar.

A screening of Joachim Trier’s Cannes hit, a reworking of Louis Malle’s New Wave classic The Fire Within. This story of a young man’s fade-out is a triumph of sensitive insight and observation, a smart, sharp portrait that even finds within its heavy subject matter the chance for warmth.

Recovering drug addict Anders is given a day’s leave from his rehab center to apply for a job in the city. Over the course of one day and night, he tries to reconnect with his old friends and family in Oslo, where the ghosts of his past mistakes wrestle with the hope to see some future by morning.

Directed by Joachim Trier (2011). Film duration: 1 hour 35 minutes. Certificate 15.

How can you use art to protest injustice and galvanise others to resist? Caryl Lewis has imagined some answers, in her suspenseful new YA novel about teens finding their voices in the darkest of times. Join Caryl as she discusses dystopia, destruction and defiance, and shares advice for young writers embarking on their own creative journey.

Caryl takes us into the near-future of The Danger of Small Things, a world where all the bees have died and young girls are taken to camps and made to pollinate by hand. Against this frighteningly real scenario, she explores how art and literature might yet save us.

A screening of Sally Potter’s fearless adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s supposedly unfilmable book – Orlando was nine years in the making. This restlessly rule-bending, gender fluid, time-travelling epic – starring a dazzling Tilda Swinton on typically shape-shifting form – remains an unmatched feat of queer filmmaking.

Young aristocrat Orlando begins a quest for love and freedom in the court of Elizabeth I as a man. He is granted favours and property by the queen who commands the nobleman to never change. Orlando completes the search 400 years later as a woman, shaking off their biological and cultural destiny.

Directed by Sally Potter (1992). Film duration: 1 hour 33 minutes. Certificate PG.