Creatives take over Kent Cinema for sold-out festival of creative culture in the screen arts

Movie lovers, TV fans and aspiring creatives packed out a Kent cinema to take part in a new festival.

Crash Festival was organised by Thom Burgess and Will Hill and held within The

Thom is a screenwriter by trade and sessional lecturer for Motion Graphics at Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU), while Will is a senior lecturer and course lead for graphic

They want to raise Ashford’s profile as a destination for entertainment and creativity while showcasing local talent.

The event, held at the end of June, included a panel with VFX Studio Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which has worked on several hit franchises including the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, Avatar and countless other major motion pictures.

Award-winning animator Nikolaos Finizio, known for his work on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, attended the event, as well as prop artist and illusion designer Dan Baines.

Thom said: “What we want to do is really start building that foundation, showing that there’s all this talent within creative culture on our doorstep and there’s no reason why industry should not be looking at Ashford. We’d like to grow that and if Crash is a success, we want to grow it year on year, really expand further into the screen arts.

“Now we’ve seen the interest in just a short space of time, we’re both confident that there’s a real crowd for it.” www.wearecrash.com