Time to roll credits and cut to a new scene

“Things change” says Don Ameche’s elderly shoe-shine boy in David Mamet’s film of the same name. And indeed they do. Nothing lasts forever, nor should it.

Thus it is that I’ve just about finished packing my bags as I prepare to leave the National Media Museum after 12 years. I say bags; in truth I need a pantechnicon or three. Dredging through it all is a journey of discovery. For in amongst all the trash that should have gone in the bin eons ago are memories – a thousand of them.

The Museum – it was the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television when I joined in 1999, still the name that most people refer to it by – is considered by me to be a gigantic toy box. Film was my plaything, the cinemas were my playground and movie people became my friends.

Those of us who work on the film festival circuit can often be accused of self-indulgence, and with good reason. It’s hard not to indulge oneself when arranging film seasons and inviting special guests. Who wants to have to suffer the proximity of an ego-driven director of navel-gazing movies when one can celebrate a genuine artist whose work straddles multiple decades? I’ve experienced both and, believe me, the latter is overwhelmingly preferable.

For a period of six years Bradford boasted four separate annual film festivals. I reckon that’s unique in the UK, maybe even in Europe. I worked on three of them, directed two and created one.

We hosted many famous faces. Among them were actors Jean Simmons, Ian Carmichael and Richard Todd. Directors Ken Annakin and Roy Ward Baker. Ace cinematographers Jack Cardiff, Freddie Francis and Alex Thomson. Stuntman Roy Alon, the Yorkshireman who made it into the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s most prolific stuntman.

Most of them became friends. Now they’re all gone – off to work in that cavernous film studio in the sky. My favourite guest? Michael Parkinson in 2007. He was a boyhood hero who epitomised everything I wanted to be. As I was about to introduce him he put his hand on my shoulder. “Enjoy it, Tony,” he murmured in my ear. I did. So did he. And the next day he sent me a thank-you message of warmth and appreciation. I still have it.

My indulgence has been in programming the annual Fantastic Films Weekend and trawling through dusty libraries of lurid old Hammer chillers as well as hosting Q&As with figures like Lawrence Gordon Clark, who created the BBC’s “ghost story for Christmas” in the 1970s.

But a bigger indulgence has been introducing younger audiences to Richard Burton. I am devoted to Burton, the melancholy Welsh lion who died in 1984. He made about 60 films in his lifetime; I’ve played about half that number during my tenure as the Museum’s head of film programming.

So the freelance world beckons. I have some books to write, a short film to make and some teaching to do. I fancy tackling a PhD. And I’ll continue watching and reviewing movies, especially the bad ones, so you don’t have to.