Children and young adults will have the opportunity to go to a number of free film screenings in Swindon later this year, as part of the world’s biggest youth film festival.

The Into Film Festival will be hosted in several locations around the South West, with screenings in Swindon between November 8 and 22.

This year, which will see more screening in the south-west than ever before, the films shown will include preview screenings, blockbusters and classics.

The intention is to provide educational development through film, with this year’s themes including mental health, awareness of bullying and the environment.

The first of the free events will be a screening of Beauty and the Beast, at the Cineworld in Shaw Ridge Leisure Park, on November 8 at 10am. The same venue will also show The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature on November 9, and Kong: Skull Island on November 10.

Later in the month, Cineworld will show Goosebumps on November 22 and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: the Long Haul on November 23.

Meanwhile, the Empire cinema at Greenbridge Retail Park will also have a week of showing, running from November 8 to November 14.

The films on show will be: Moana, The Emoji Movie, Captain Underpants, Beauty and the Beast and Dunkirk.

All showings are at 10am.

Rosamund Pike, who starred in Gone Girl, said of the festival: “To be in a crowded cinema full of young, enthusiastic film fans is a real joy because you realise that the work you are doing is going to reach future generations.

“I think just opening these young people’s minds to the excitement and inspiration that’s possible with film and combining that with education is an immense and important undertaking that Into Film is engaged with, and the fact that they do all this for free is just incredible.”

For more information, visit www.intofilm.org/festival