Screen legend Malcolm McDowell, veteran comedy actor/writer Eric Sykes and acclaimed director Ken Loach are among the big names at this year's Bradford Film Festival.

Other star guests include Mark Herman, writer/director of Brassed Off, Jeremy Dyson, writer of The League of Gentlemen, and internationally-acclaimed film composer Michael Nyman.

The 12th Bradford Film Festival, at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television next month, features more than 100 films from around the world, including premieres.

Leeds-born Malcolm McDowell will receive the festival's Lifetime Achievement Award honouring his film career spanning nearly 40 years. The actor will fly in from his home in Los Angeles to attend the festival launch and receive the award.

He will be the subject of a Screentalk interview over the opening weekend and screenings of his films include the controversial A Clockwork Orange, Gangster No. 1 and If...

Mr McDowell will introduce the festival's tribute to Lindsay Anderson - the UK's biggest-ever season dedicated to the film-maker - with whom he worked closely.

The festival opens with a UK premiere of The World's Fastest Indian starring Anthony Hopkins - based on the true story of New Zealander Burt Munro's quest to break a speed record on a 1920 Indian motorcycle - and closes with Lost, a road movie starring Dean Cain, star of 1990s TV series The New Adventures of Superman, and Hollywood's favourite villain, Danny Trejo.

Festival director Tony Earnshaw said: "As well as showing more previews and premieres than ever before, we're delighted to be able to welcome so many high profile guests to Bradford this year - thanks in no small part to the support we have received from the Illuminate festival and Screen Yorkshire.

"This year we're also able to celebrate some of the great films made in the region, with a cast and crew screening of Kes, with Ken Loach in attendance, and we're especially happy to celebrate ten years of Brassed Off with writer Mark Herman." Other big films include South African township drama Tsotsi, twisted family tragedy The King, tough Aussie "western" The Proposition and the premiere of Stephen Rea's new version of James Joyce's Bloom. There's a focus on moves from Slovenia and other films from Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Eric Sykes, 82, who starred in a string of classic short comic films between 1967 and 1993, will discuss his contribution to British cinema, (screenings include The Plank and Rhubarb) and Mr Loach will recall his groundbreaking work. Screenings of his films include Cathy Come Home and Kes and the festival will reunite some of the cast and crew of Kes as well as the 1964 epic Zulu, followed by a widescreen presentation.

The film festival joins forces with Bradford theatre company Mind the Gap to host part of Beam, a month-long programme of visual art, film, theatre and dance performed by disabled artists.

Held as part of Yorkshire's Illuminate arts festival, it includes screenings of controversial films about disability, including Danish director Lars Von Triers' The Idiots about a group of people who subvert conventions of middle class society by releasing their "inner idiots".

There's a screening of Angel of Bradford, a film made in the city by Mind the Gap, and On the Verge, a one-man show combining film, music and theatre performed by learning disabled actor Jez Colborne.

Other highlights include Mark Herman marking the tenth anniversary of Brassed Off with a Screentalk recalling the making of the hit film, and a masterclass on screenwriting by Leeds-born Jeremy Dyson, the only non-performing writer of The League of Gentlemen. Michael Nyman, who has composed 75 scores for film and television, including The Piano and Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books, will open the festival's second annual Film and Music Conference.

Controversial film-maker Thierry Zeno gets a mini-retrospective as part of the fifth Crash Cinema symposium. And the festival's Widescreen Weekend includes a new 70mm print of South Pacific and screenings of Doctor Zhivago and Far and Away. Guests include Dick Vetter, an engineer who created the lens for the widescreen process.