Curated by Jonathan Coe
The UK’s only film festival dedicated to the adaptation of books in to films – From Page To Screen - has invited one of Britain’s leading writers to be its artistic director.
Jonathan Coe, author of bestsellers What a Carve Up! and The Rotters’ Club, will curate the five-day event in Bridport, West Dorset on April 13-17th 2011.
Coe, whose novel The Rotters’ Club was adapted for television in 2005, has yet to disclose the festival programme but film fans can expect a thought-provoking line-up – he has been a jury member for the Venice and Edinburgh Film Festivals, and film critic for the New Statesman.
Coe said: “I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship between film and the written word, and was delighted to discover that there is now an entire festival devoted to this very subject. The opportunity to play a role in shaping this year’s festival was simply too interesting to pass up.”
From Page To Screen was founded in 2009 by Bridport Arts Centre, as a sister-festival to the Bridport Literary Festival and the Bridport Prize – one of the UK’s longest running and respected literary prizes.
Showing 15 films over five days at venues across town, including the Arts Centre and the 1920s Electric Palace cinema, most screenings will feature a talk by someone involved in either the book or the making of the film, giving audiences the chance to go beneath the surface of their favourite films and discover more about the film-making process. (Last year the Oscar nominated A Single Man – based on the novel by Christopher Isherwood – was introduced by Isherwood’s biographer, Kate Bucknall, who was adviser to director Tom Ford, while writer and journalist Lyn Barber made a special guest appearance at the screening of the An Education, the film based on her memoir of the same name.) It’s expected that Jonathan Coe will present some of his selected films himself, and will invite other authors and film-makers to take part.
From Page To Screen committee member and Director of Bridport Arts Centre Polly Gifford said the festival committee was delighted to have such an important British novelist on board: “Jonathan Coe is an incredibly filmic writer with a huge knowledge of cinema and a great wit, so he will bring a unique flavour to From Page To Screen 2011.”
“This pioneering festival is born out of a passion for film and its links with our literary heritage, and through it we want to inspire people of all ages to read more, watch more films, write and make more films. This year we plan to involve even more film-makers and writers in the festival programme, making it a must for film lovers everywhere. ”
The 2011 festival will also launch a Flash Film competition, giving film-makers the opportunity to adapt the winning story in the Bridport Prize’s Flash Fiction competition in to a 60-second film, and there will be other short talks, workshops and screenings throughout the week.
The festival’s full schedule will be published in March.