PACK your tents and don’t forget your torch! Picnic Cinema is returning to Hamsterley Forest this summer hosting two consecutive nights of film, fun and festival antics... and if you use the link below some people will get in for free.

Last year the forest transformed into a zombie playground for the massively successful screening of 28 Days Later where movie goers dressed up and got freaky, and terrified campers returned to their tents after the film for a restless night.

This year audiences will be donning tea towels and singing merrily to Monty Python’s Life of Brian (bring your sandals!) and be on the look out for aliens and strange lights in the forest for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (PG).

The Bowes Museum provides the ideal and spectacular backdrop to Picnic Cinema’s screening of The Woman in Black (15) on Tuesday, August 19. Audiences can choose to take up the rare opportunity to camp overnight in the grounds or just stay for the evening.

Picnic Cinema is an outdoor cinema like no other, where forests, castles and courtyards across England are transformed into unique cinema locations. Picnic Cinema is part-adventure, part-fancy dress party plus the chance to camp out overnight.

This summer Picnic Cinema’s eclectic mix of great films will be taken to fantastic forest locations throughout England thanks to a partnership with The Forestry Commission.

Adrian Lochhead, Director of Eden Arts and Picnic Cinema says “I think the best part is that it’s not just about watching a film in a forest; we have way more fun than that. The feedback we get is fantastic, people tweeting us that they had the best night of their year which tells us that we’ve stumbled upon the right recipe. The whole project is simply designed to give people a good time…., I think everyone realises that it’s something special, an opportunity to do something that is really out of the ordinary.”

All profits to Picnic Cinema goes to arts charity Eden Art’s rural touring cinema programme, Remote, which brings cinema equipment free to rural villages in Eden, Cumbria.

The dates for the Hamsterley Forest screenings are Friday, July 11, Monty Python’s Life of Brian (15) and Saturday, July 12, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (PG). Tickets are on sale now and available from picniccinema.co.uk

Picnic cinema tour dates:

July 11, Monty Python's Life Of Brian (15) Hamsterley Forest, County Durham

July 12, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Hamsterley Forest

July 23, The Blair Witch Project, (15) Dalby Forest, nr Pickering, North Yorks

August 19, The Woman In Black (15) The Bowes Museum, County Durham

For a chance to win tickets for the Hamsterley Forest Picnic Cinema go to http://bit.ly/picnicecho