by Eileen Jones
A film festival inspired by the poetry of William Wordsworth will take centre stage in the Lake District this month. And there’s a connection to one of Gritstone’s newest publications, about Wordsworth’s home, as you’ll see.
The Inward Eye Film Festival is held over three days at Zeffirellis cinema in Ambleside, established now as a biennial event, and bringing new and acclaimed movies, inspiring conversations, celebrated writers, filmmakers and special guests for three days of film and storytelling.
This year’s festival will feature a specially curated programme of feature films, documentaries, short films, Q&As, writers’ workshops, live music and special events. It will include an outdoor screening of Gladiator – yes, outdoors, in the Lakes, in autumn – along with a chance to see newly released films such as Josephine, and Mel Brooks’ remastered re-release of Young Frankenstein, but also the perennially popular cult classicWithnail and I which premiered at Zeffirellis in 1987.
A nod to Daffodils
The festival takes its name – and inspiration – from Wordsworth’s most famous poem, I wandered lonely as a cloud in which he wrote of daffodils: They flash upon that inward eye, Which is the bliss of solitude. And it originates from a partnership of two powerhouse women of the film world. Dorothy Smith, former managing director of the independent cinema and restaurant complex in Ambleside, was for many years personally responsible for selecting all the films and handling the scheduling and programming for the venue’s five cinema screens. Yes, five! In 2019 she teamed up with Charlotte Wontner of Hopscotch Films who has many years experience working in film and television as a producer and has organised large productions and sold her films at festivals worldwide.
Film star patron
Charlotte is also the great great great great grand-daughter of Wordsworth, and for many years her family owned the house at Rydal Mount, near Ambleside, where the poet had lived for most of his life. She had brought the actor Brian Cox to the Lake District for a special screening of his film The Carer, which she had produced, at Zeffirellis. He had a tour of the house at Rydal Mount and had dinner with Charlotte and other members of the family in the dining room there. “We were so lucky to get him there for that event, and he loved the house, and he loved Zeffirellis.” And it was Brian Cox who suggested to Dorothy Smith that it would be the perfect venue for a film festival. “I told him, we’ll do it if you will be our patron,” she recalls, and so the Inward Eye was born, the title coming from Charlotte: “After all, film is the next stage of poetry.”
Dorothy had always been happy to host special occasions, including the gala premiere of Withnail and I. And some years ago when Zeffirellis screened the premiere of Downhill, a film about four friends walking the Coast to Coast route, guests were asked to come in evening wear – with hiking boots. They were greeted on the pavement outside not with a red carpet, but a green one, made of artificial grass. Charlotte was clearly delighted with Dorothy’s enthusiasm, and Brian Cox is still the Festival patron.
The IEFF was founded in the hope of sustaining arts in the North West and promoting independent film-making, and “Zeffs” as it’s known locally was the perfect venue choice. It’s a remarkable organisation, a business which began life as a vegetarian restaurant in 1980 opened by Derek Hook, Dorothy Smith’s brother, and grew to provide the town of 3,000 permanent residents with five cinema screens, two restaurants, a day-time cafe, a wine bar and jazz bar and a successful annual jazz festival, Ambleside Days. In 2015 they added a vegetarian guest house, the elegant Ambleside Manor, to their business portfolio.
Screenwriters of the future
And it’s there that a small group of aspiring screenwriters will gather for the duration of the festival this year for a series of mentoring workshops led by senior figures from the film industry. In previous years the writers’ workshop was held at Rydal Mount, but the house is currently closed while the new owners, the Wordsworth Trust, make plans for its future. They bought the house from the Wordsworth family earlier this year.
The Manor is an ideal venue, says Charlotte Wontner, who hopes that the workshop will offer the opportunity to gain constructive feedback on projects and brainstorm ideas. “It should be viewed not as a place to get things right but a space to try things out and have permission to fail. The aim is to get the writers to tell the story they want to tell and to develop it in the most dramatically engaging way.”
Withnail and him
In another workshop, actor, writer and producer Mark McGann will be working with youngsters hoping to make a career in the film industry. These sessions, he says aim to “target a lack of meaningful leading screen acting opportunities for drama school graduates or seasoned actors yet to break into film and TV at a leading role level.” Mark McGann and his brother Paul, who starred in Withnail and I, were regular visitors to Rydal Mount in recent years.
At the last festival, in 2024, tickets sold out immediately for a screening of Withnail and I, with a pre-film talk by Paul McGann. Screen Two was opened up for a second, staggered-time showing, with McGann rushing between the two auditoria to speak to the fans. “It was absolutely packed out,” Charlotte recalls. “The atmosphere was fantastic.
“Since 2019 the festival has brought people from all over the UK and abroad. And bringing industry people and actors to Rydal Mount was in the tradition of the poet who had always offered hospitality to creative people. But the whole event has generated so much energy and enthusiasm among local people, too, and among film students we have brought with us to help out.”
More information about the origins of the Inward Eye Film Festival, about the connections with Wordsworth, and the history of Wordsworth’s best-loved home can be found here: https://gritstonecoop.co.uk/product/rydal-mount-the-story-of-wordsworths-home/
Details of this year’s festival: https://www.zeffirellis.com/news/inward-eye-2026
Header image: Dorothy Smith and Charlotte Wontner at a previous Inward Eye festival. Photo: Zeffirellis
