Elle Haywood Joins CFF Programming Panel

Over the coming days and weeks we will be announcing various new additions to the Cambridge Film Festival team.

When our long time Festival Director, the inimitable Tony Jones, stepped down following the 2019 Festival everyone knew that he was irreplaceable. Over more than 30 years Tony had overseen all aspects of the Cambridge Film Festival. Not only leading on programming the annual Festival but also as the driving force behind other events such as Movies on the Meadows and countless projects across not only Cambridge but the UK.

The trust knew that finding one person to take on everything Tony had done was an impossible task, so plans were put in place to broaden the team and bring a range of new voices to the Festival.

We are lucky to have already put together a great delivery team over the last few years and are excited to now be assembling a Festival Programming Panel, which will incorporate new and existing CFF programmers under the leadership of the amazing Elle Haywood.

Elle is a film curator and critic with a background in film, media and technology. She has already worked with the Festival in a number of different roles since 2017, and now returns to take a key position as our Programming Panel Lead. She has previously worked with the British Film Institute, London Korean Film Festival, and Film Africa.

As a respected critic Elle has written for Girls on Tops, Take One, Vague Visages, The Final Girls and Jumpcut Online, covering European and U.K film festivals and online seasons.

She has a BA in Media Studies from Anglia Ruskin, and an MA in Film Studies, Programming and Curation from the National Film and Television School. Her interests including Scandinavian, Feminist and LGBTQ+ cinema, independent filmmaking and multidisciplinary theoretical research. Elle is an Associate Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University.

We expect to be announcing further additions to the programming team very soon and couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome everyone to Cambridge for CFF41 this coming October, a showcase of everything you love about the Cambridge Festival as we look forward to another 40 years of discovering great cinema!

I am delighted to take the next steps in my curatorial career with the Cambridge Film Festival as their Programming Panel Lead. I am keen to uphold the values of the festival, and work with the team to seek out innovative, bold and compelling films to share with our loyal audience.

Elle Haywood