The Big Daddy of English mountain culture gets underway this weekend.

The Kendal Mountain Festivals are now established as the premier venue for film and literature with a mountaineering bent and this year’s big names are Joe Simpson, who will be in the Cumbrian town for the big-screen premiere of The Beckoning Silence, and Geoff Powter, a Canadian psychologist whose book We Cannot Fail: The Fine Line Between Adventure and Madness, provides the literary theme for the festival.

The film festival rolls into Kendal on Friday night, 9 November, with Asif Kapadia’s Far North, starring Sean Bean and Michelle Yeoh, shot in the Arctic and, apparently, the tale of how a soldier's unexpected arrival affects two women's simple existence.

Most events need pre-booking and there are links to help you do this on the Kendal Mountain Festivals website.

Other luminaries include famed film-maker Leo Dickinson, Doug Scott and Chris Bonington along with Nicholas Crane, the bloke from the telly who always has a rolled-up umbrella sticking out of his rucksack.

The Boardman Tasker Award for mountain literature is now part of the annual Kendal event. Hamish Brown, Judith Brown, Bernadette McDonald, Robert McFarlane, James M Tabor and Stephen Venables are the shortlisted finalists. Winner of the award will be announced at the Brewery Arts Centre on 16 November.