THE biggest and longest- running rural film festival in the UK kicks off in Dorset this month.

The Purbeck Film Festival, now in its 13th year, will once again bring a selection of more than 80 films to fans across the area.

And for the first time it has opened its doors to amateur and student film-makers, whose work will feature alongside blockbusters, classics, arthouse and foreign cinema throughout the three-week event.

The festival launches on October 16 at the Rex Cinema in Wareham (now owned by the Purbeck Film Festival Charitable Trust) with The Seven Year Itch, the 1955 classic starring Marilyn Monore.

The iconic star will pop up a number of times throughout the three weeks for the festival’s Marilyn season.

Before the main event will be a showing of film short The Donor, which tells the story of two people who find love in the unlikely surroundings of a sperm donor clinic – introduced in person by the producer Nick Coppack.

It’s the first of a series of shorts set to show before the main films during this year’s event.

The festival is also hosting The Purbeck Shorts, a student film competition, on October 28 at the Rex.

Festival trust administrator Julie Sharman said: “I think it’s attracting a lot of attention and taking the festival in a different direction in hand with what we are already doing.”

She added it was “lighting a fire” under the event, which she hoped would get bigger and better as a result.

The festival runs from October 16 to 31 at venues including the Lighthouse in Poole, the Lookout Café at Durlston Castle, Swanage, and Bournemouth University’s Allsebrook Theatre, as well as a host of village halls.

Full details are available at purbeckfilm.org.uk.

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