THE spirit of adventure will be freed from a celluloid 'lamp' next week when one of the country's most prestigious mountain festivals gets under way.

In a programme packed as tight as a mountaineer's rucksack the Kendal Mountain Film Festival presents an impressive array of films, lectures and seminars over a long weekend.

The festival runs from November 14 to 17 with the film programme kicking off at Rheged, near Penrith, tomorrow, November 9.

Attracting both fans of the silver screen and snowy ravine, the festival brings together big names in mountaineering and a selection of top international climbing films featuring Everest, Alaska and the UK premiere of Kilimanjaro - To the Roof of Africa.

Art, photography and literature also get a look in with exhibitions, book

fairs and signing events featuring big names including Chris Bonington, Audrey Salkeld, David Breashe

ars and Lynn Hill.

Although the event will be held across several venues, Kendal's Brewery Arts Centre will act as base camp for the weekend and host an awards ceremony on Sunday afternoon.

The 350-person capacity theatre will play host to a series of specialist and themed lectures and a large marquee outside the centre will house the festival information centre.

Extreme sport films will be shown in the Malt Room and the galleries, foyer, and bars will have a range of painting, sculpture and photographic exhibitions.

Seminars, workshops and the photographic competition will take place in the Studio.

A complementary bus service will shuttle festival-goers to Kendal's leisure centre, which has a seating capacity of 950, for keynote lectures.

The Rheged Discovery Centre will host a programme including lectures by Kurt Diemberger and four large format films.

Diemberger's lecture Summit and Secrets includes clips of his films, including the first shot on the summit of Everest.

l Meanwhile, at 10.15pm next Friday and Saturday, at the Brewery Arts Centre, there will be a chance to catch a 20 minute film shot by South Lakeland kidney patient and mountaineer Tony Ward, of Ambleside.

The film called Strength for Life was shot when Mr Ward and his team tackled Mont Blanc in aid of the National Kidney Research Fund.

The former outdoor instructor who performed dialysis at altitudes of more than 3,000 metres also attempted to climb the Matterhorn with a mobile dialysis unit in 1999.

Naval Falklands veteran Tony, who has led expeditions in Nepal and the Himalayas, was diagnosed as having chronic renal failure in April 1998.