Organisers have lined up a mountain of a film as the main feature of this year’s Swale Film Festival.

Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Keira Knightley and Josh Brolin, is the epic adventure drama which will take top billing as the annual celebration of cinema returns to the borough in September.

There also promises to be choices to keep the younger members of the community entertained as well as filmmaking workshops, classic pictures and a selection of horror movies.

In another coup, organisers have secured the recently reopened New Century Cinema in Sittingbourne High Street for screenings with and 300-seat auditorium and recently opened second screen, which seats 60 people.

As in the past seven years, a programme of films and workshops will also be held at the Avenue Theatre, Central Avenue, Sittingbourne and The Criterion in Blue Town Heritage Centre, High Street, Blue Town.

The full line-up is yet-to-be-confirmed but the festival will run from Thursday, September 24, to Sunday, September 27, with an evening reception at the New Century for supporters, celebrities from film and television and friends on the opening day.

A separate competition called A Sense of Change, run by Elstree Film Design at Elstree Studios, will also be screening its winning films during the festival.

Young filmmakers are also being offered the opportunity to help produce a five-minute promo for a horror film called Emma’s Night to Remember.

Festival director Ken Rowles said: “It’s going to be good to screen a nice, big feature, Everest. It is being released in September so it will be like having a premiere.”

The Kent Film Awards, which normally runs alongside the festival, will be screened early next year and Mr Rowles said he hoped it will give young people more time to get out and film over the summer.

The Sheerness Times Guardian and Sittingbourne News Extra will once again be a sponsor along with the Kent Film Office, the British Film Institute, Swale council and AmicusHorizon.

Details of the programme will be at www.swalefilmfestival.org.uk in the coming weeks and more information on the Kent Film Awards will be updated www.kentfilmawards.org.uk.