The stars of a new film which is the squawk of the town have landed in Bradford.

Chicken Run, the first feature-length animated adventure by the creators of Wallace and Gromit, is one of the hottest releases of the summer.

And two of its Plasticine stars are causing a flap after being given pride of place at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television.

Rocky and Ginger go on show from today at the museum's Animation Gallery - just in time for the start of the Bradford Animation Festival.

A museum spokesman said: "The characters from the Oscar-winning animation team that brought us Wallace and Gromit are set to take Hollywood by storm."

Rocky is the hunky Rhode Island Red played by Mel Gibson who crash-lands on the fearsome Mrs Tweedy's 1950s prisoner-of-war camp chicken farm to help Ginger (Julia Sawalha), the only sensible voice in the henhouse, to mount a daring escape.

Bradford Animation Festival will host the northern premiere of Chicken Run at 8pm on Wednesday at the Pictureville Cinema.

It will be preceded at 6pm the same day by a triple bill of Wallace and Gromit, the Plasticine characters who first made Nick Park's Bristol-based Aardman Animations famous.

The festival is launched today with Museum Animation Day (MAD!), which features activities including computer animation workshops at Pictureville and classic animation workshops covering techniques such as pixilation, model-making and cut-outs.

The theme of this year's MAD! is dinosaurs, with screenings of classic films of the genre and a chance for visitors to create their own prehistoric creatures.

Other films being screened during the festival include Pokemon - the First Movie and Toy Story 2, both at 5.30pm tomorrow, The Iron Giant at 6pm on Tuesday and The Tigger Movie at 5pm on Thursday.

e-mail: simon.ashberry@

bradford.newsquest.co.uk

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