MYSTERY and compulsion drive the latest film offered up by the Wide Skies Film initiative.

A joint enterprise by Hexham’s Forum Cinema, Queen’s Hall Arts and Hexham Book Festival, the year-round programme of events builds on the annual Wide Skies Film Festival launched in the town last summer.

Working in partnership with a number of community film clubs scattered across Tynedale’s rural hinterlands, the team aims to increase access to film and the cinematic experience in general.

Allendale, Haydon Bridge, Kielder (both the castle and the Calvert Trust), Slaley and Tarset all play host to film nights throughout the year.

The Forum Cinema, for its part, shows a film drawn from a diverse and eclectic pool of international films in its dedicated Wide Skies Film slot, usually early on a Tuesday evening.

Next Tuesday, January 10, at 4.30pm, it will be the turn of Unknown Girl, the latest production from the Dardenne brothers, the award-winning directors of Two Days One Night and The Kid With a Bike.

One evening, after closing her practice for the day, Jenny, a young doctor, hears the doorbell ring, but doesn’t answer it.

The next day, the police inform her that an unidentified young African woman has been found dead close by.

Adèle Haenel plays the idealistic and now guilt-ridden doctor who becomes obsessed with finding out who she was.

She is ably supported by Olivier Bonnaud, Jérémie Renier and Louka Minnella.

First screened in Cannes to a rather muted reception, Unknown Girl was subsequently edited down by several minutes and has now been re-released in a new cut.

Tickets are available from the Forum box office now.