Bradford is the 2025 City of Culture. What does that mean for the festival this year?
It means that we’ve been able to push the boat out a little bit more, think a bit more experimentally with the program, take a few more risks with it. It does also mean that this is the biggest program we’ve ever done for Widescreen Weekend. It consists, so far, of 33 events and screenings, which is our biggest program yet. With the spotlight being on Bradford, it’s just allowed us to put on more screenings, to bring over those prints, to work differently with partnerships and archives. It’s a really exciting year to be able to do Widescreen Weekend.
With VistaVision making a comeback with The Brutalist (2024) and One Battle After Another (2025) and The Fantastic Four (2025) movie being advertised in “Fantastivision” why do you think film formats and the widescreen formats of the 50s are of interest to general audiences right now?
You know what, I don’t know. I think it probably stems from the love of print, or having these directors and auteur filmmakers bringing them back and grabbing people’s interests. It does seem like it’s grown in popularity, but I can’t pinpoint where that’s come from or at what time that happened. In the same way vinyl seemed to have gotten more and more popular, I think the same is happening with film and film formats.
I feel as though people are starting to understand the benefits of certain formats now. Whenever we have print on in our general release program, it generates more audiences than just standard digital. I’ve noticed that whenever we are programming our IMAX, when we have films that are shot in IMAX, the marketing materials around it often talks about the framing which is not something that we had 5, 10 years ago.
I love that people are finding out about it and exploring it a bit more. We get emails through our general email address for the cinema all the time, and they’re asking about the format and the screen aspect ratio and stuff like that, which again is something that we never ever used to have. It’s really pushing our knowledge to the test. It definitely seems on the rise, but I don’t know where that boom has come from.
There’s plenty of opportunities for people to indulge their curiosity this year because the museum is open again. Tell us what that might add to the festival.
We opened our new Sound and Vision Galleries. They’ve been in the works for a couple of years now and they opened this summer. The focus of the new permanent galleries is sound and vision technologies with film being a big part of that. There’s a lot of objects on display, a lot of stories around film, around the birth and development of film. I think it means that people can really make those connections between what they’re seeing on screen and the objects and the technologies and the creative brains behind it.
Another thing that’s reopening this year is the IMAX screen. It’s interesting because Pictureville one has this beautiful, long curved screen? What can people expect from the IMAX screen?
It’s probably subjective whether you prefer IMAX versus the Pictureville. IMAX, for me, is a lot more intense and immersive. It’s a huge screen, especially with our IMAX. We are the biggest screen in Yorkshire, the first IMAX in Europe, it’s a huge, huge screen with immersive sound. If people want to be completely immersed in that film with the surround sound, with the big picture, then they will prefer IMAX.
Then if you like a bit more of the theatrics around cinema, with the red curtains and the sound of the projector, then you’re going to prefer Pictureville. I think it’s our responsibility to show audiences the whole light spectrum of cinema. We’re really lucky that we can do that in the museum with both big screens and even our smaller cinema, the Cubby Broccoli screen. The three cinemas all together means that we can show almost any format.
IMAX is a heavy hitter in the film industry right now, and I think we need to show that. With Widescreen Weekend, we look to the past and look at ’50s and ’60s film technology but we need to start looking to the future as well. IMAX is that at the moment. I’m glad that we’ve got our three cinemas fully open this year so we can include film screenings in every cinema space and show people that breadth of cinema.
Let’s get to that broad range because you have strands again this year, and you’re carrying over certain themes with those strands. You often have a strand dedicated to a specific format, a national cinema, and a star, or two in this case. This year’s format strand is Todd‑AO. What can you tell me about this format and the films you’ve chosen to represent it?
Todd‑AO was one of the formats that came out of the 1950s and ’60s, in what we call the Widescreen Race. Quite a lot of studios were frantically trying to bring audiences back to cinemas after the invention of television. Cinerama was one of them but Cinerama was quite clunky and quite over the top with its three projectors projecting simultaneously on the screen. It was difficult to project to an audience as well as to film on set.
Quite a lot of studios were trying to think of different ways that they could entice people into the cinemas, in more accessible and less expensive ways. Todd‑AO was one of those. It’s often referred as “Cinerama out of one hole”, because it did still have that expansive picture, the clarity of the frame, and the colour, but it was projected out of one hole onto a large screen. It made things much more accessible for the cinemas to project, but also for filmmakers to shoot. It’s going to be 70 years of the format this year. The first screening that was in 1955, and it was Oklahoma! (1955), which we are not showing just because there’s some rights issues happening with Rodgers and Hammerstein films at the moment.
Some of the films that we are showing include Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), which will be showing on the curve. We’ve got The Alamo (1960) which we’re going to be showing on the curve. We’ve got some more recent Todd‑AO films with Baraka (1992), which we’re going to show on 70mm. Then there was a weird time in the ’70s and ’80s where filmmakers used Todd‑AO to shoot some of their films. Todd‑AO had this resurgence for a little bit, but it very quickly died a death again. The films that are included in that are very random and we have chosen to represent them with the original Mad Max (1979) in 35mm and the original Dune (1984), which will be on 70mm, which will be a nice way to introduce new audiences who know the remake to the film and to be able to screen it on print as well. Flash Gordon (1980) we’re showing as well.
I’m guessing those Rodgers and Hammerstein rights issues might also explain a certain absence of a Todd‑AO shot, Julie Andrews film.
It’s been a mad year, actually. Every so often we have one of these years where every film we seem to be asking about is either on holdback because of some anniversary or a planned re-release or there’s rights issues. Sometimes you’re just unlucky with just the timing of everything. We had an issue with Rodgers and Hammerstein because the UK rights have expired. We couldn’t get any of those. Then certain anniversaries and things as well. It’s been a fun time.
People don’t realise this, that the core work of a film programmer is logistics.
Yes, absolutely. I do a bit of lecturing at Bradford University about film programming, especially archive film programming. I always say, you need to have about two, three, four backups because you never know what’s going to happen. You can’t just have one film. You have to keep pivoting; you have to keep moving because until you start digging around rights and anniversaries and formats and things, you don’t actually know what’s available and what’s not. You have to have backup after backup after backup, which we did this year.
Now the national cinema strand for this year is Korean widescreen, which is fabulous and includes my favourite film of all time, Oldboy (2003) and follows a season of Korean cinema at the BFI last year. Can you tell me about how that program came together and why this is the year to have a season on Korean widescreen?
Actually, no offence to BFI, but I feel like we were doing it first. We started a partnership with the Korean Film Archive back in 2019. We were exploring a season of film with them just because of the rise in popularity of Korean film after Parasite (2019) won the Oscar, and then people were starting to revisit more cult classic stuff. We were planning this to be part of Widescreen Weekend 2020, but obviously Covid happened. Luckily, we did do the festival that year, but it was very streamlined and it was very geared towards local audiences and we just felt like because of the uncertainty of everything we would hold that season back until we could do it justice.
The Korean Film Archive are great. They’re just so knowledgeable about Korean film, but also how it fits within widescreen cinema and film history, and they were just great. We’ve programmed this strand together in partnership, and I really don’t think I could have done it without them. It just brings a authenticity to the strand.
We were going to just do three or four films, but then it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and I think we’ve ended up with seven films, but it could have easily been its own festival. They’re so great to work with. I just feel like having them involved means that we can bring those hidden gems to audiences.
This year, you’re celebrating two Hollywood icons with their own strands. Let’s start with Julie Andrews, a legend of Hollywood musicals and you’re celebrating her with a very interesting trio of films. Can you tell us more about the movies you’ve chosen and how you came to them?
We always like to make sure that we are representing the women in cinema and film history. One of our regular festival attendees, who’s introduced some films for us before, Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, has a specialty in musicals. We were just talking by email and he said, “Did you know it’s Julie Andrews’ 90th birthday this year and it’s around Widescreen Weekend?” I didn’t actually! Then we just started talking, and all of these lesser-known titles and hidden gems just kept coming to the forefront.
I think a lot of people know Julie Andrews for Sound of Music (1965) or Mary Poppins (1964) and don’t really know much else, but she’s got a huge film library. She’s playing all of these different, left-field characters and some films mirror what she was going through at the time. We always like to have a musical on the Friday, Saturday nights, so The Victor/Victoria (1982) musical fits really well. It’s just a great film anyway. Julie Andrews is just amazing in it and it’s LGBTQ+ friendly. It just felt like something that we haven’t had a part of the festival before.
Then Torn Curtain (1966), a Hitchcock film, which I think not many people know about. Again, the fact that Julie Andrews is in an Alfred Hitchcock film, feels slightly left-field for her. We’re going to be showing that on 35mm.
Then recently this year, we started a monthly series called Cine Spotlights, where it’s basically an illustrated talk by an academic or a freelance programmer, with a film screening. We’ve carried that into Widescreen Weekend, so Dominic’s going to do our Cine Spotlights this year for us. He’s going to be talking about Julie Andrews and her career. We’re going to be screening Duet For One (1986) with the talk. It just feels really nice to be able to bring those titles to audiences and hopefully change the perspective of Julie Andrews a little bit.
The other star strand is Celebrating the ever wonderful Jack Lemmon. Tell me about why Jack Lemmon this year.
2025 sees the centenary of Jack Lemmon, so he would have been 100 if he was still with us. That coincided really nicely with us planning for this festival. Some of the feedback that we were getting from delegates and attendees in terms of wanting more comedies within the festival. We actually do read every feedback form and see how we can embed suggestions into the program year on year. With that feedback of more comedies and the Jack Lemmon centenary, it just made sense.
Again, he’s got a huge film library of various genres of film. Obviously, he’s done a lot of comedies, so it felt nice to be able to pin that down and focus on his comedies. Some films people probably don’t know My Sister Eileen (1942). He has quite a small role in that, but he’s still playing this really over-the-top character and a character that’s completely different to how people know him in The Apartment (1960), for example.
As part of the strand, we are doing a double bill of The Odd Couple (1968) and The Front Page (1974), because it felt really disingenuous to do a strand of Jack Lemmon’s comedies and not acknowledge his partnership with Walter Matthau. We wanted to do a double bill of those films that he did with Walter Matthau, because they were they were best friends off screen. We’ve got a little nod to that as well with a bit of a fun double bill.
One other item that couldn’t help but stand out is Flash Gordon, which you’re advertising as your first late night screening. Can you tell us about that?
I guess it’s something that we started a few years back. It was mainly to help build upon and diversify our audiences a little bit. People that know our festival know that it’s very international. A lot of people come from all over the world to the festival but we actually struggle a little bit with local audiences and the younger crowd. I’m so grateful for our dedicated audiences that come and buy a pass and they’re there for every screening. We want to slowly bring in these new audiences to help with the festivals without cannibalizing our regular audience and without rocking the boat too much.
We started to do this a couple years back with our Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) all-nighter, which sold out. It was hitting the right mark. We did it again last year, we did Indiana Jones movie marathon. It doesn’t feel like this tokenistic add-on. Flash Gordon is on Todd-AO, and we’re showing a print. That helps us champion showing film on film, but it’s a later slot which means that we can welcome new audiences to our cinema. We can still play The Alamo for our regular delegates and we can still do actor and actresses spotlights. It just means that when we’re adding to the program rather than taking stuff away.
Last year, we spoke about the difficulties in programming a festival where participants are unlikely to take a film off for lunch or breaks. Now that you’re making greater use of the Cubby and you’ve got the IMAX back, how have you found programming three screens this year where people might want to mix and match what screenings they’re going to?
It hasn’t gotten any easier. I probably need to stop programming so many films, but I get excited. It builds on what I was just saying about bringing in new, diverse audiences. The more that we can use Cubby and IMAX and use them authentically and they’re still including the seasons and strands of the program, means that we can just welcome more audiences to the festival.
We program it quite carefully so that there’s nothing of the same strand showing at the same time. People are going to have to make decisions, that’s just the nature of festivals, but if you are a hardcore Korean widescreen fan, you can come and see all those films in the strand. None of those are clashing.
We know our regular audiences well. We’ve made sure that if the main film in Pictureville isn’t suited to our regular audiences, that there is going to be something for them in Cubby. Obviously, we would love them to go and take a chance on a film they’ve never seen or heard of before, but again, if they don’t want to, it’s their prerogative that they can go and watch something else in Cubby.
We’ve worked hard to make sure that films start and finish at the same time so that if you’ve gone to watch another film in Cubby, you’re still getting out at the same time as everyone else. You can go and meet people for lunch or you can get out of the Cubby film and still be in time for the next one in Pictureville. It’s a bit of a mind melt, a bit of adult Tetris, but I think we’ve got there.
The first time we spoke you mentioned how almost every year there’s that one film that’s very personal and specific and precious to you to try and get over the line and make sure it’s included. Is there such a film this year for you?
I’m still working on one. The eagle-eyed people out there may have spotted that we are missing a film currently. There is an empty slot on the Sunday evening at the moment. I am still trying to get that film over the line. If I managed to get that film sorted, then that will probably be my white whale, my favourite.
Outside of that, I think the Korean films, just because I was on a bit of a journey with the Korean film archive with those. I love Korean cinema, but I don’t know a lot about it. I probably just know the bigger titles like most people, or the cult classic stuff like Oldboy. I certainly don’t know some of the earlier films from the ’60s. As they were suggesting them I was trying to then watch the films alongside and learn as I went. It just made me fall in love with Korean cinema again, or fall in love with it more because some of the films that were coming out in the early ’60s felt quite ahead of their time.
There’s a film as part of the program called Let’s Meet at Walker Hill (1966). It just feels like a product of its time in terms of Korea and especially Seoul in the ’60s and how westernized it was becoming. The contrast between what is happening in Seoul and especially with the young people and the clothes and the music, in contrast to these people from the country who are very traditional Korean, it’s just really interesting to see the visuals together. I think it just tells a lot about where the world was going at that time. I think all of those films, and Let’s Meet at Walker Hill specifically are favourites of mine.
Discover the full programme of Widescreen Weekend and book tickets and passes here: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/cinema/widescreen-weekend/programme