Summer is traditionally the time for the big blockbusters – and Brighton’s Odeon and Cineworld are crammed full of superhero and family movies over the next few weeks.

But this year sees the Duke Of York’s Picturehouse launch a one-off festival taking in contributions from the worlds of dance, theatre and opera, as well as arthouse cinema.

“Over the past few years we have been including a lot of alternative content,” says programmer Paul Ridd.

“This festival is a way of celebrating that aspect of our programming and integrating it with our traditional programming, as well as a reaction against the summer blockbuster.”

Among the big coups for the festival are exclusive preview screenings of classics including Rudolf Nuryev and Margot Fonteyn’s Swan Lake from 1966, the Cannes hit documentary Corman’s World and Orson Welles’s long-lost Chimes At Midnight.

“Chimes At Midnight has been in limbo for many years,” says Ridd.

“We’ve finally been able to release it – it’s quite an exclusive in the sense that it might not happen again for a while.

“Similarly, Lech Majewski’s The Mill And The Cross about [Renaissance artist] Breugel has been in limbo for some time as they decide whether to give it a theatrical or DVD release. Usually festivals are based on one site, but the advantage with this festival is that it can be seen at 19 different sites.”

The screenings are all being shown at the same time across the country, something that can be done more easily with the rise of digital media.

“The logistics of print distribution is still quite complex,” admits Ridd.

“But digital makes it a lot easier to co-ordinate.”

One major highlight of the programme is a live satellite question-and-answer session with Sir David Attenborough following the screening of his latest 3D documentary Flying Monsters.

“The development of digital and satellite technology means we have been able to show ballet, opera and theatre going out live,” says Ridd.

“We can show events that would lose something on DVD or the small screen. It’s nice to bring it to people who would otherwise not be able to see it – and with the big screen they are closer to the action.

“We are planning to show more from New York’s Met Opera season later this year, as well as the National Theatre’s One Man Two Guvnors [Richard Bean’s adaptation of a Carlo Goloni play which starts in September and is already sold out].”

Below is a break-down of the different strands in the two-week Screen Arts Festival.

FALSTAFF

Shakespeare's lovable rogue Sir John Falstaff is at the heart of a series of live theatre screenings, operas and classic films. Orson Welles’s rarelyseen masterpiece Chimes At Midnight stars Welles as the rotund figure in a compilation of his Shakespearian appearances.

Meanwhile there are also screenings of Roger Allam’s Olivier Award-winning performances as Falstaff in Henry IV Parts One and Two recorded last year at The Globe Theatre, and The Merry Wives Of Windsor, starring Christopher Benjamin. And an archive Glyndebourne staging of Verdi’s Falstaff, turning The Merry Wives Of Windsor into an opera, shows the lecherous character also had an amazing singing voice.

Chimes at Midnight (PG, 115 mins): Monday, 6pm Falstaff (136 mins): Friday, August 5, 6.15pm Henry IV Part I (PG, 180 mins): Saturday, August 6, 3.30pm Henry IV Part II (12A, 180 mins): Sunday, August 7, 3.30pm The Merry Wives Of Windsor (U, 160 mins): Thursday, August 11, 6pm.

HOLLYWOOD HEROES

Among those directors who received Roger Corman’s guiding hand are Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, James Cameron, Joe Dante and Martin Scorsese. And he gave early roles to Jack Nicholson, Charles Bronson, Robert De Niro, William Shatner and Sylvester Stallone.

But he was most famous as a producer, creating scores of classic B-movies including Little Shop Of Horrors, The Wasp Woman, It Conquered The World, The Masque Of The Red Death and The Fall Of The House Of Usher, for next to nothing.

Alex Stapleton’s documentary Corman’s World tells his story from his start as a hack screenwriter right up to his Lifetime Achievement Academy Award last year.

With a full release scheduled next year, this is a chance to see a preview screening of the film, with Ridd hoping any future screenings can be accompanied by a mini-season of Corman’s work.

A Letter To Elia is Corman disciple Martin Scorsese’s personal tribute to the controversial film-maker Elia Kazan, the director of On The Waterfront and East Of Eden who was ostracised by Hollywood after naming names at the House UnAmerican Activites Committee in 1952.

Corman’s World (15, 95 mins): Tomorrow, 10.30pm A Letter To Elia (PG, 60 mins): Wednesday, August 10, 7.15pm

DANCE

The meteoric rise of dance prodigy Sokvannara Sar is documented by director Anne Bass, who first spotted the graceful natural dancer as a 16-year-old while holidaying in Cambodia.

Bass invited the young boy to accompany her back to the US to train with dance legend Olga Kostritzky at the New York School Of American Ballet, and saw him take to the stage with Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet.

The film takes in his remarkable story, and also how he dealt with the massive culture shock. The strand also features a never-before-seen restoration of Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn starring in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake at the Vienna State Opera House in 1966.

And following the Duke Of York’s screening of Wim Wenders’s amazing 3D biopic Pina earlier this year, Rainer Hoffman’s documentary Dancing Dreams follows legendary choreographer Pina Bausch as she creates the surreal dance-hall drama Kontakthof.

Dancing Across Borders (U, 92 mins): Tomorrow, 6.30pm Swan Lake (107 mins): Monday, 4pm Dancing Dreams (PG, 92 mins): Thursday, 1.30pm.

FINE ART

It has a cast of 2,000 actors, three live orchestras, a set encompassing 33 rooms of the Russian State Hermitage Museum and a plot traversing 300 years.

But what makes Russian Ark, Aleksandr Sokurov’s tale of a 19th-century French aristocrat travelling through history, so amazing is that it was all shot in one long, continuous take.

The 99-minute film combines fine art, classical music, dance and pioneering cinematic technology, and sums up the cross-arts principle of the festival.

Also in the fine art strand is Lech Majewski’s The Mill And The Cross, a biopic based around Renaissance master Peter Breugel which has yet to receive an offical release.

Rutger Hauer stars as the painter as he creates his 1564 masterpiece The Road To Calvary. And another Old Master is the focus of Peter Greenaway’s Nightwatching, which focuses on Flemish painter Rembrandt van Rijn. Martin Freeman stars as Rembrandt, as he discovers a murderous conspiracy involving the Amsterdam Musketeer Militia he has just been commissioned to paint.

Russian Ark (U, 99 mins): today, 1pm and 11.45pm The Mill And The Cross (15, 92 mins): Sunday, 1pm Nightwatching (18, 135 mins): Wednesday, 1.30pm

OPERA

Performances from some of the great opera houses of the world are being screened throughout the Screen Arts Festival season.

And the highlight of the opera strand is a live performance of Verdi’s Nabucco being transmitted live by satellite from Italy’s Teatro Antico Taormina.

Other operas being screened as part of the festival are the 2010 Glyndebourne production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the New York Met’s versions of La Fille Du Regiment by Donnizetti and Puccini’s Tosca and Madama Butterfly, which stars Patricia Racette in Anthony Minghella’s classic version.

The Three Tenors Legends is a concert film of the moment Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and José Carreras met onstage at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome in 1990.

And the formative years of arguably the greatest composer in history is examined in Rene Feret’s “speculative” biopic Mozart’s Sister, which focuses on Wolfgang’s lesser-known older sister Maria Anna, who, like her brother, was also a musical prodigy.

Don Giovanni (210 mins): Sunday, 6pm Mozart's Sister (12A, 120 mins): Tuesday, 1.30pm The Three Tenors Legends (U, 86 mins): Wednesday, 6.30pm Tosca (140 mins): Thursday, 6pm Madama Butterfly (160 mins): Monday, August 8, 6.15pm Nabucco (180 mins): Tuesday, August 9, 8.30pm La Fille Du Regiment (140 mins): Wednesday, August 10, 1.30pm.

THEATRE

Although most of the festival’s theatre strand is given over to Shakespeare’s Falstaff, Screen Arts opens with a one-off showing of the National Theatre’s production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.

Zoe Wanamaker stars as the ageing matriarch Ranyevskaya who is frozen with indecision about what to do for her family’s future, and the titular orchard.

The Cherry Orchard (180 mins): Tonight, 6pm.

DOCUMENTARY

Undoubtedly the highlight of the first Screen Arts Festival is a chance to see the BAFTA Award-winning Flying Monsters in 3D, followed by a live satellite question and answer session with its narrator Sir David Attenborough.

The film uses state-of-the-art CGI to recreate the flying dinosaurs, using all the up-to-date fossil information available. There’s also another chance to see Werner Herzog’s brilliant 3D documentary Cave Of Forgotten Dreams, which came to the Duke Of York’s earlier this year.

Given exclusive access to the Chauet Cave in southern France, Herzog’s breathtaking cinematography and use of new technology brings the world’s oldest cave paintings to life.

Plus there is a rare chance to see the critically acclaimed Australian box-office smash Mrs Carey’s Concert, which follows a Sydney girls’ school’s preparations for a performance at the opera house.

The titular hero tries to fire up her pupils’ enthusiasm, but finds herself fighting against apathy and teenage angst.

Flying Monsters 3D (122 mins): tomorrow, 4pm. Cave Of Forgotten Dreams 3D (U, 90 mins): Sunday, 11am. Mrs Carey’s Concert (95 mins): Tuesday, 6.30pm.

* Tickets from £5.50. Call 0871 9025728