Cinema festival just gets better (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Big screen delights to launch Bradford City of Film accolade

11:26am Friday 26th February 2010 in News By Jim Greenhalf

Festival director Tony Earnshaw looks forward to the first showing of a digitally-remastered version of The Railway Children, which will bring the festival to a close next month Buy this photo »

With more than 120 films being screened from all over the world, next month’s 16th Bradford International Film Festival aims to be the biggest and best of its kind in the country outside London.

At the festival launch, National Media Museum director Colin Philpott said: “In pursuit of our ambition we are, for the first time, extending the festival beyond Bradford.”

Films will be shown in nine other venues including Saltaire’s Victoria Hall, Ilkley Playhouse, Otley Courthouse and cinemas in Leeds, Hebden Bridge and Pocklington.

“This festival will be the first since the wonderful news in June that Bradford was the first and only UNESCO World City of Film,” said Mr Philpott.

“The first week of the festival will be the official launch of the City of Film. It’s a great opportunity to use film as part of the change that Bradford wants to have in the coming years.”

The festival opens on Thursday, March 18 with the UK premiere of Ian Fitgibbon’s film Perrier’s Bounty, and closes with the world digital premiere of Lionel Jeffries’s 1970 classic The Railway Children, filmed on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.

Among the 11-day festival’s special guests are actors John Hurt and Imelda Staunton, and directors Nicholas Roeg, Alex Cox and Fernando Meirelles.

Festival director Tony Earnshaw said: “I am really pleased with the line-up. It just goes to show that Bradford is evolving all the time. We are taking over the world – in a small way.

“We are doing things that no other city in the UK is doing. There is no film festival across the country with our Wide-Screen Weekend, the Shine short film awards and Uncharted States of America – showing the work of independent film makers.

“And every satellite venue will have its own exclusive programme of films. This gives us a template to go beyond Bradford, beyond Yorkshire.”

On the first weekend of the festival, March 18 to 21, the City of Film will be officially launched with a multitude of events across Bradford, from film symposia, conferences and screenings for professionals and amateurs.

Family activities include Family Film Fundays featuring Roald Dahl-style animated chocolate factory workshops, face-painting, storytelling and screening of Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and The Witches.

* The Bradford Film Festival is on from March 18 to 28. The box office number is 0870 7010200.