The Bayeux Tapestry : A Medieval Storyboard
From the Bayeux Tapestry to the Big Screen: 1,000 Years of Storytelling
At the Children’s International Film Festival, we believe that human beings have always found ways to tell stories. Long before cinema screens, cameras or even the printed word, people were using pictures to record extraordinary events, communicate ideas and bring history to life.
Few objects demonstrate that more spectacularly than the Bayeux Tapestry.
For CIFF 2026, we created a special promotional film exploring this remarkable piece of visual storytelling and the story of 1066. The film introduces young audiences to the people, places and events depicted across the Tapestry, while also encouraging them to look at it through the eyes of a modern filmmaker.
Because, in many ways, that is exactly what the Bayeux Tapestry is, a film created almost a thousand years before film existed.
Across its extraordinary sequence of images we see characters introduced, journeys beginning, armies gathering, ships crossing the Channel and dramatic events unfolding. There is action, suspense, symbolism, humour and tragedy. One image leads into the next, allowing an audience to follow a story visually in a way that feels surprisingly familiar to anyone who has ever watched a film, drawn a storyboard or created a comic strip.
That connection between ancient storytelling and modern filmmaking made the Tapestry a perfect subject for the Children’s International Film Festival.
It was particularly meaningful in 2026, as CIFF brought its festival to Hastings.
This year marks 960 years since the Battle of Hastings in 1066, one of the defining moments in British history and the climactic event depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. Hosting part of our festival in Hastings therefore gave young filmmakers an extraordinary opportunity to explore a story connected directly to the landscape around them.
For children attending CIFF in Hastings, 1066 was no longer simply a date in a history book. It became a story that could be investigated, interpreted and retold.
And that is central to what CIFF is about.
We want young people to understand that stories belong to them. History can be explored through documentary, drama, animation, comedy, sound, performance and film. Something created nearly a millennium ago can still provide the starting point for a completely new piece of work made by a child today.
The Bayeux Tapestry also reminds us that technology changes, but the fundamental ingredients of storytelling do not. We still need characters. We still need conflict. We still need moments of anticipation and surprise. And we still use carefully chosen images to guide an audience through a story.
From an embroidered story created in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest to films created by young people in Hastings almost 1,000 years later, the tools may have changed enormously — but our desire to tell stories, understand one another and leave something behind for the next generation remains exactly the same.
For CIFF, there could hardly be a better demonstration of the power of storytelling.
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