Hollywood star Will Smith will headline the fourth Bite The Mango film festival at Bradford's National Museum of Photography, Film and Television.

The nine-day event, Europe's biggest showcase for black and south Asian films, will feature nearly all Smith's major movies including Independence Day and Men In Black, as a special tribute.

"He has had a short but meteoric rise," said the festival's director, Bill Lawrence.

"It's quite unusual for a black American to have such success in Hollywood. He's become established within the American psyche in a way that Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and even Bill Cosby never achieved.

"Now he's producing as well as acting, and he's about to take on his biggest challenge yet, playing Muhammad Ali.

"So this seems an ideal time to look at his career."

Other Smith films showing during the festival include Enemy of the State, Bad Boys, Made in America and Where The Day Takes You.

Bite The Mango also features a revival of the 1972 masterpiece Pakeezah (Pure), 20 years in the making and long regarded as India's answer to Gone With The Wind. The sweeping story of forbidden love and lost fortunes in the Mughal court was recently selected by Guardian critic Derek Malcolm as one of the one hundred best films of the century.

The festival opens with an early screening of the soon-to-be-released drama, Such a Long Journey - already the subject of a row with Indian censors for its uncompromising and sometime unflattering portrait of Asian life. Set on the verge of the 1971 war with Pakistan, the film features actor Om Puri, the star of last year's Bradford-set drama, My Son The Fanatic.

Live events during Bite the Mango include a talk by Indian cinema's leading female producer/director, Pooja Bhatt. The former actress has been responsible for an increasingly radical tide of films questioning the traditional values of Asian society and its treatment of woman in particular.

The festival runs from September 24 to October 2, and features screenings at all three of the museum's cinemas. There is a bookings and enquiries line on Bradford (01274) 202030.

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