BRADFORD'S Widescreen Weekend celebrates its 25th anniversary this autumn, with film screenings in bars, clubs and village halls across the district.

Special guests include broadcaster Edith Bowman and writer and cultural historian Sir Christopher Frayling, who will introduce a strand on legendary Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.

Widescreen Weekend showcases large-screen formats and cinema technologies and celebrates the past, present and future of film. This year’s festival has a Sound of Cinema programme tying into the National Science and Media Museum’s current Sound Season, including its two exhibitions Sonic: Adventures in Audio and Boom: Experiments in Sound.

The Sound of Cinema will spotlight Ennio Morricone with a talk by Sir Christopher Frayling to commemorate the Oscar-winning composer's career creating film scores for classics such as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, The Thing, Bird with the Crystal Plumage and The Mission, all of which will be shown.

The Sound of Cinema also links into Women in Widescreen, exploring female and non-binary score composers and their work across a range of genres, with screenings of Whale Rider, Monos, Tron and Dope.

Festival-goers will have chance to attend a live recording of Edith Bowman's podcast Soundtracking, where she talks to film directors, actors, producers and composers about the music that inspires them.

Restorations and cult film screenings include Cinerama classic It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with a video introduction from Karen Kramer, wife of the film’s director Stanley Kramer; and Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, 25th Anniversary Edition and 2015 film Tangerine, which was largely filmed on an iPhone.

Pictureville Cinema at the National Science and Media Museum is one of the last venues in the world where audiences can see Cinerama.

To celebrate the festival’s 25th anniversary, the museum has partnered with community cinema venues, including bars, village halls and neighbourhood spaces. Venues include Bradford Cathedral, Clayton and Thornton Community Cinemas, and Nightrain rock club. Walking tours of Bradford will explore key destinations and stories which led to its UNESCO City of Film status.

Kathryn Penny, Head of Screen Operation, said: "There’s no denying the pressures cinema has felt over the past year-and-a-half, but the experiences and memories of seeing film on the big screen are more important than ever, unifying people, providing a place to escape the everyday, or to feel the comfort of watching a classic. We pride ourselves on Widescreen Weekend being a safe space where everyone can enjoy something new or familiar.”

The festival programme will open with a screening of Spartacus, which was screened at the first ever Widescreen Weekend in 1997. Widescreen fans are asked to send in memories of past festivals, which will form an online story available to read at this year's event. Email widescreenweekend@scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk.

* Widescreen Weekend runs from October 7-10. Visit scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk