Festival news #2
15/05/2006

The Fantastic Films Weekend – the UK's fastest growing festival of science fiction, horror and fantasy – is almost upon us. In our second e-newsletter you will find an update on the films and special guests who will join us for our fifth annual celebration of classic cinema fantastique hosted by the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford

JEREMY DYSON signs up as FFW patron

The League of Gentlemen's Jeremy Dyson has joined the ranks of the Fantastic Films Weekend as the festival's very first patron. Alongside his work as one quarter of the League, Jeremy is also an author, musician and filmmaker. A dedicated aficionado of 1960s and 1970s horror from the Hammer and Amicus stables he feeds such influences into his work, thus ensuring the style and atmosphere of that era live on in the 21st century.

We are delighted to have him on board.

Phibes filmmaker ROBERT FUEST joins 2006 FFW line-up

Writer/director Robert Fuest - of Dr Phibes fame - has confirmed he will attend FFW.

Bob cut his teeth on The Avengers. As a feature film director he enjoyed success with both The Abominable Dr Phibes and its sequel, Dr Phibes Rises Again! before moving onto The Final Programme, an adaptation of the Michael Moorcock novel and the classic that is The Devil's Rain. His other films include the Brian Clemens scripted And Soon the Darkness and a particularly gothic rendering of Wuthering Heights .

Bob will be with us throughout the weekend and will be talking part in a ‘Screentalk' interview about his career in fantasy TV and cinema. FFW hopes to screen both And Soon the Darkness and The Final Programme during this year's event.

TV from the vaults

The NMPFT's TV Heaven archive is to screen an array of rarely seen programmes from its vaults as part of this year's Fantastic Films Weekend. There will be presentations of Rudolph Cartier's Nineteen Eighty Four, starring Peter Cushing and André Morell, and Peter Watkins' devastating docu-drama The War Game, about the aftermath of a nuclear attack on Britain. Other titles being considered for inclusion are Nigel Kneale's The Year of the Sex Olympics, a 1960s Horizon special featuring footage from the ‘lost' TV play The Caves of Steel and episodes of Kinvig, The League of Gentlemen and Out of the Unknown .

Big screen blockbusters

Fans of comic strip action will want to soak up Batman Begins and V for Vendetta. Both films will be playing on the giant Imax screen during the 5th Fantastic Films Weekend.

Even more films

Titles added to the 2006 schedule include Robin (The Wicker Man) Hardy's The Fantasist , new prints of Theatre of Blood and Hammer's The Hound of the Baskervilles, the 1990s serial killer chiller White Angel and Murnau's Nosferatu complete with live musical accompaniment by pianist Terry Ladlow.

And there is still more to come!

Picture gallery added to FFW website

Catch up with some of the people who have been to the Fantastic Films Weekend over the past five years via our website's new photo gallery. Here you'll find some familiar faces plus the odd werewolf. Check out the website on www.nmpft.org.uk/fantastic

Passes for the 5th Fantastic Films Weekend are available at £35 (Weekend; £30 concessions and Friends of Film) and £15 (Day; £12.50 concessions and Friends of Film) from the Box Office on 0870 70 10 200.