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Film showcase to celebrate northern youth culture

Hayley Coyle
BBC News, Yorkshire
National Science and Media Museum An old-fashioned video camera in an exhibition space filled with film postersNational Science and Media Museum
The series of films is intended to reflect Bradford's younger population

The National Science and Media Museum in Bradford is planning to host a season of films dedicated to youth culture in the North.

The museum's Pictureville Cinema will be showing a mixture of classics, such as Shane Meadows' This is England, and debut films by up-and-coming talent, as part of a project celebrating Bradford's status as the UK's youngest city - by population - with 26% of residents aged under 18.

The showcase, from 30 May-13 June, has been curated by Bradford-born director Dominic Leclerc, of Skins and Shameless fame.

A spokesperson said the films will shine a spotlight on the "bold and blistering spirit of young northern characters in British cinema".

Mr Leclerc called the undertaking a "filmic deep-dive into the hearts and souls of characters on the cusp of adulthood".

The project, part of the museum's ongoing collaboration with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, will open with the 2023 coming-of-age drama How to Have Sex.

The "landmark" British comedy-drama East is East, which was set and partly filmed in Bradford, and explores the "tensions of a family navigating identity, tradition and rebellion" in 1970s northern England, will also be shown.

National Science and Media Museum A still from the film East is EastNational Science and Media Museum
One of the films being shown is 'landmark' movie East is East

Also screening is The Long Day Closes, a semi-autobiographical film from Terence Davies about the inner world of a working-class teenager in post-war Liverpool, and the West Yorkshire rural drama, My Summer of Love.

There will also be a screening of the 2007 film Control, a portrait of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis.

Mr Leclerc added: "Poetic, punky and ionate - this season of extraordinary films celebrates the complexity, beauty and wonder of youth, and asks the question: 'what happens when the emotional geography of adolescence intersects with one's regional identity'?

"From rural Yorkshire landscapes to the gritty backstreets of Salford, come and take a northern road trip to the heartland of youth."

Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.