Where else but Keswick Film Festival could you sit down and see films about wrestling and opera within a few hours of each other? Travel from Margate to the American deep south via Italy, Kenya, China and Chile? Contrast Scandinavian fantasy with the gritty realism of Glasgow in the 1970s?

This year’s festival programme will appeal to a wide variety of film lovers.

British film Jellyfish kicks off the festival on Thursday, February 28, with a moving story of Sarah (a stellar performance by young Liv Hill), a young carer who finds she has a talent for stand-up comedy.

Saturday night’s gala will be Sometimes Always Never, starring the incomparable Bill Nighy, alongside Alice Lowe, Tim McInnerny and Sam Riley.

Not on general release until June, The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw described the film as ‘a distinct, articulate pleasure’.

Music lovers will appreciate Maria by Callas, a documentary about the operatic diva told in her own words. With Maria’s wonderful singing and Jackie Onassis and Omar Sharif seen in archive footage, the film will evoke memories of a golden age.

You wouldn’t call Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson a diva (at least to his face) but he appears in Fighting with my Family, a film based on the true-life story of English professional wrestler and actress Saraya-Jade Bevis.

She performs under the ring name Paige and won the Divas Championship on her WWE debut. Florence Pugh, last seen in The Little Drummer Girl takes the lead role, with director Stephen Merchant also appearing.

The festival takes on some serious issues too.

Films Disobedience and Rafiki contrast the reactions of traditional communities to same sex relationships in London and Nairobi. Director Norma Marcos will be at the festival with her film A Long Hot Summer in Palestine which she made after reading a heart-rending tweet from a young Palestinian girl in Gaza: “I'm 16 and I've already been through three wars."

Highly topical is Citizenfour, a documentary about the journalists that brought Edward Snowden’s revelations to the public – and which comes across as a real-life thriller.

Festival director Ian Payne said: "This year we have a really exciting and accessible programme, which is reflected in excellent sales of tickets and weekend passes.

"I’ve been lucky enough to see a few of the films already. Border and Sorry to Bother You are both brilliant and will have people talking about them for weeks afterwards.

"I can’t wait to see Mads Mikkelsen in Arctic and, of course, we close with Green Book which has already won Golden Globes and is Oscar nominated."

The full festival programme, which contains some 30 films and events and runs from February 28 to March 3, can be downloaded from www.keswickfilmfestival.org and tickets are on sale from Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake.

Screenings take place at The Alhambra Cinema, Theatre by the Lake and at Rheged.