Eighteen films were shown at this year’s Swale Film Festival – the most in its history.

The four-day celebration of cinema, now in its seventh year, took place from Thursday to Sunday.

Highlights included a Night of Terror triple bill of The Blair Witch Project, Trauma and Black Panther at The New Century in Sittingbourne High Street.

There were also screenings of Queen and Country, a sequel to 1987’s Hope and Glory, at The Criterion in Blue Town Heritage Centre on Friday.

Jaws and a special showing of Dirty Dancing, with live music and stand-up comedy, both at the New Century, also went down a storm.

Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Keira Knightley and Josh Brolin, was the week’s big release and was shown at the same venue several times while children’s films Tinker Bell and the Neverbeast and Strange Magic shown there were also well attended.

Youngsters learned how to shoot an action sequence at a filmmaking workshop at the Sheppey Leisure Complex, Sheerness, on Saturday, which included going through an assault course with a GoPro camera strapped to their head.

Festival technical director Steve Kane, from Touchbase Media, led the session.

Samantha Finch, producer at Elstree Film Design, attended a screening of the winning films of a separate competition called A Sense of Change, which was organised by her company at the New Century on Saturday.

A screening of documentary The First Film at the Avenue Theatre, Central Avenue, Sittingbourne, had to be cancelled after director David Nicholas Wilkinson, who was due to attend a Q&A session, got stuck in traffic. Organisers are now looking to reschedule the event.

Festival director Ken Rowles said: “It went fairly well. We could have had better attendance at a few events.

“One thing we have now got is a cinema in the New Century and the most important thing is that the community appreciates that the cinema is doing all it can to put on good films.

“In all, it was a successful festival and it’s growing every year.”