A Big Thank You to All of our Audiences

This year has been the best yet for the team here at the Leeds International Film Festival with an incredible programme selection of films from all around the world, a huge increase in audience attendance and more special guests than ever before. We would like to thank you, our audiences for coming to see the films and making this happen!

For another chance to see the photos and videos of our question and answer sessions with our filmmaking guests, exclusive interviews and special events just go online and visit flickr.com, YouTube and Facebook. To keep up to date with our film news, special offers and screenings throughout the year, sign up to our newsletter below.

We want to know about your experiences of the Film Festival, so please write to us on our social networking sites and let us know about your favourite films, special guests and films that you would like to see next year! Genre fans can also follow the latest developments in the Fanomenon programme section with our brand new website www.fanomenonleeds.com - the site will be regularly updated over the next 12 months with special announcements and exclusive offers.

Ponyo Wins the Audience Award!

We are delighted to announce that Miyazaki's latest stunning anime, Ponyo, has won the audience award for the Leeds International Film Festival 09. Described as wonderful, funny and charming by our audiences, we are delighted to have showed Ponyo among a range of other high quality animation including the captivating Summer Wars, and haunting Angel's Egg, as part of our Fanomenon section which celebrates genre films including anime, horror, sci fi and action. The winners of our Golden Owl Award and Silver Melies Competition, along with jury statements, can also be found below.

The Final Audience Top 20

Thanks to everyone who has voted throughout the Film Festival, the top 20 audience favourites are as follows:
1) Ponyo 2) Departures 3) Stingray Sam 4) The Revenant 5) Millennium: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 6) Summer Wars 7) Love Exposure 8) Harry Brown 9) Throw Down Your Heart 10) Bunny and the Bull 11) Oil City Confidential 12) White Night Wedding 13) Turn It Loose 14) Encirclement 15) North 16) 5150 Elms Way 17) The Misfortunates 18) Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae 19) La Pivellina 20) Kites

A Huge Thank You to All our Sponsors and Partners

We would also like to say a big thank you to all our sponsors and partners who have supported this year's event. The Film Festival has developed a number of successful relationships with a wide range of businesses and organisations in recent years and 2009 was no exception with major support from our leading partners including anCnoc, Northern Rail, City Inn, VUE Cinemas and Magnitude. Their support helped us to increase our marketing campaigns and provide exclusive benefits for our audiences. Along with City Inn, our hospitality partners, Nation of Shopkeepers, Casa Mia, Tampopo and Leeds Brewery ensured all our guests, delegates and audiences had a great time in between the screenings and special events. Leeds Guide, Yorkshire Evening Post, Twitch, Little White Lies and Netribution provided great coverage and editorial throughout the duration of the Film Festival as our main media partners. We were also delighted to welcome some new supporting partners this year and we hope to develop these fantastic relationships with Leeds City College and Sheffield Hallam University in the future.

Leeds International Film Festival returns in 2010

Join us in 2010 for the 24th Leeds International Film Festival - 4th - 21st November 2010. Key dates will be published on the site shortly.