Tasked with the open-ended challenge of putting stories that are relevant to them and reflective of their surroundings on the big screen, the Storyhouse Young Programmers have come up with their Our North 2019 season, running at the venue throughout August.

Their response to the remit of our latest programming support scheme is an idiosyncratic mix of films that's true to the group's diverse curatorial personalities and their shared interest in examining the North through the many weird and wonderful lenses of cult cinema.

Screenings include heavy hitters of the cult cinema world like Withnail and I - perennially popular and oft-requested by Storyhouse regulars, it's a natural choice for a summer in the North West sometimes derailed by unpredictable weather. And there's room made for rarer beasts too: The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue is a particularly rare and beastly selection; a vintage eurohorror with a Northern twang whose vision of the region is no less apocalyptic than Withnail's, though for decidedly different reasons.

Bookending the programme are two nods to local heroes: Stockport's Carol Morley opens proceedings with The Falling, an unusual psychological drama set in a strict all girls school plagued by a mysterious fainting epidemic. And Chester-born Daniel Craig closes things out as the programmers revisit Some Voices - a powerful, compassionate and now unfairly forgotten study of living with schizophrenia that saw Craig reunite with Our Friends in the North director Simon Cellan Jones to deliver a second standout performance early in his career.

For more information on Storyhouse's Our North programme and the curators' motivations for their selections - take a look at the season's accompanying blogpost.