Video: Bradford Film Fest gives Brian Cox top billing

SCOTTISH film star Brian Cox will be the guest of honour at this year’s Bradford International Film Festival (BIFF) which begins next month.
Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Media Museum with Bradford International Film Festival Co-Director Neil YoungJo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Media Museum with Bradford International Film Festival Co-Director Neil Young
Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Media Museum with Bradford International Film Festival Co-Director Neil Young

The 20th festival is also welcoming writer, director and TV presenter Mark Cousins and film director Sally Potter, who will collect the festival’s Fellowship Award.

Cox, who has starred in films such as Manhunter, Braveheart and The Bourne Supremacy, will make an appearance at the festival which also includes a retrospective of his career.

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The actor said: “I’m heartened to receive an award like this from the festival. For an actor it’s a recognition of a body of work, not just your latest or biggest film. It’s a great honour.”

Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Media Museum with Bradford International Film Festival Co-Director Neil YoungJo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Media Museum with Bradford International Film Festival Co-Director Neil Young
Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Media Museum with Bradford International Film Festival Co-Director Neil Young

This year’s BIFF, which runs for 10 days from March 27 to April 6, is again centred around the city’s National Media Museum and will see Cox, one of the UK’s most respected stage and screen actors, take part in a Screentalk in Bradford on April 6.

Festival co-director Neil Young said the festival was proud to “salute” the 67 year old. “This year’s recipient of the BIFF Lifetime Achievement Award is truly a titan of the acting profession.

“Brian Cox has excelled consistently in distinctive, scene-stealing roles in cinema, on stage and television, in a professional career that spans half a century.”

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Cox joins a long list of special guests who have attended the festival since it started in 1995, a list that includes Sir Richard Attenborough, John Hurt, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Ken Loach.

The festival opens on March 27 with The Lunchbox, an Indian-made crowd pleaser that was a hit at Cannes, and closes with the British film Locke, starring Tom Hardy and Olivia Colman.

To mark the 20th anniversary, there will be a public poll to find Virgin Media’s Best of BIFF - a chance for audiences to vote for the best British film made in the last 20 years which has been screened at the festival.

* For more information go to www.bradfordfilmfestival.org.uk.