The Crystal Palace International Film Festival (CPIFF) has been running for 16 years and is attended by stars such as musician Paul Weller and comedian Johnny Vegas.
It’s currently rated 5th in the world on film festival website FilmFreeway’s top 100 best reviewed film festivals and is also the second best reviewed festival in the UK behind Nottingham’s Beeston Film Festival.
Dubbed ‘The world’s coolest film festival’, the annual celebration of independent cinema takes place in March and hosts several screenings of short films that cover a range of genres, from documentaries and animation to horror and comedy, at Everyman Crystal Palace in Bromley and West Norwood Picturehouse in Lambeth.
Founder Neill Roy has launched a petition to save the festival after claiming the licensing departments of Lambeth and Bromley councils have demanded to watch and rate every single film before they are screened at the festival.
Mr Roy said the councils would charge him to do so at £25 a film and £1.50 per minute. There were 132 films in this year’s festival which would have equated to a charge of over £6,500, a cost that Mr Roy says would sink CPIFF.
He has been critical of these new demands, calling the councils “short-sighted” and “pathetic” and likening their stance to that of a “nanny state”.
He said: “They’re not looking at any kind of a bigger picture and what the festival does for the area. Filmmakers fly in from all across the world to spend their money in these boroughs.
“We sell out while other film festivals are empty with just filmmakers there. We sell out nearly every night.
"We do brilliant things for independent film and for the area, getting youngsters into work and inspired to go and make films themselves.
“You come along and meet the filmmakers and you see these incredible works of art on the big screen. It’s just inspirational and a lovely thing to do.”
Mr Roy feared that if the festival had to shut down, it would have a negative impact on the development of young creatives in South London.
He said: “An 18-year-old lad came to me on launch night this year and said, ‘I came to this when I was 15 and I was so blown away that I’m now studying film at university’. It’s lovely to hear that but you’re not going to get that again because under 18s will not be able to come.”
He has offered to rate the films himself, as the festival has done for the last 16 years, or issue a blanket 18 age rating for the entire festival and stage three nights in each borough for under 18s.
However, Mr Roy claims that these ideas have fallen on deaf ears.
A Lambeth Council spokesperson said: “Lambeth is committed to supporting a wide range of community organisations and events that entertain and enrich our community.
"We have worked closely with the Crystal Palace International Film Festival over many years to help ensure that the event could take place with all its films were properly classified.
“But the council, like other local authorities, has a responsibility to classify films which have no age rating certificate from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) before they can be shown to the public. Fees are charged to all organisations that ask us to classify their films.
“Licensing in Lambeth went through all of the CPIFF films for 2025 to be shown at West Norwood cinema – which included differently-themed groups of films shown on separate dates.
“We issued ratings for each group of film showings and provided individual classifications for these groups based on the classification of the ‘highest-rated’ film within each of those groups which allowed films to be viewed not just by adults over 18. We also undertook cross-checking as to what films had already received a BBFC classification (and therefore didn’t need a rating from us) and let the organiser know about those.”
Bromley Council, like Lambeth, has said that it is simply seeking to comply with legislation and its approach to CPIFF has not changed. A council spokesperson said: “There is no change in how the council has treated the film festival in over a decade, with the only change being that the film festival now wants to include children in the audience, where legislation therefore needs to be complied with.
“Under the Licensing Act 2003, any premises licensed for the exhibition of films must ensure that all films shown carry a classification certificate from either the BBFC or the local authority.
“The council currently has serious financial challenges of its own but we have, in previous years, revised application fees to support the festival and remain open to discussion about the way forward but we need to ensure the law is complied with, part of the aim of which is to protect children.”
In response to the councils’ concerns about the safety of children, Mr Roy said: “In 16 years no child has been harmed and there’s been no issues whatsoever. They’ve got access to the internet where they can find anything anyway. It’s not going to be CPIFF that’s going to harm them. It really is pathetic.”
Despite the setback, Mr Roy said he’s “always hopeful” that the festival will survive.