BBC Film 2014 critic Danny Leigh has helped shape the inaugural Eastleigh Film Festival which will open with an innovative audience-picked gala on 22nd September at the Vue cinema, Eastleigh.

Speaking about the week-long Festival organiser Crispian Cook said: “Eastleigh Film Festival encourages audiences to experience film differently, offering exciting site-specific film screenings around the town in all sorts of unlikely locations.”

Events include a screening of George A. Romero’s horror classic Dawn of the Dead at the Swan Shopping Centre –  out-of-hours for the full zombie shopping mall experience – and the Coen Brothers’ cult favourite The Big Lebowski in AMF Bowling; Eastleigh’s Hollywood Lanes’ equivalent.

Audiences can help shape the festival themselves, too, by picking their favourite movie from Danny Leigh’s selection of cinema’s best-loved genre movies that includes among others The Fly, The Shining and The Long Good Friday. It will go to a public vote, with the winning top three screened at the Vue as part of the opening gala.

Aspiring new filmmakers will get the chance to meet the experts at a specialist Industry Day on 25 September that will feature workshops, talks and Q&As.

Eastleigh Film Festival is also running a short film competition in association with the European-funded Recreate project and will be welcoming submissions from the UK and France. The first prize will be professional development and seed funding opportunities valued at £5,000 (approx.). Shortlisted film entries will be screened throughout the week leading up to the announcement of the winner at the Industry Day.

Eastleigh Film Festival runs from 22 to 27 September.