As part of the events on offer at KIFF, on Saturday 25th June Adrian Wootton will present one of his favourite films, Jules Dassin’s 1950 noir thriller, Night and The City. Though critics at the time of its release did not react well to Dassin’s film, it later came to be hailed as a masterpiece. Starring Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney and Googie Withers, it is based on the novel of the same name by Gerald Kersh and shot on location in London and at Shepperton Studios. The plot revolves around an ambitious hustler who meets continuous failures. Differing versions of the film were released in the UK and America and, in his talk preceding the film, Adrian will be discussing this and other issues surrounding both the film and Dassin’s troubled life.
Adrian Wootton OBE is Chief Executive of Film London and the British Film Commission. Adrian is a Programme Advisor to the BFI London Film Festival; Venice Film Festival and Noir in Fest, Milan; Founding Director of Shots in the Dark Festival, Nottingham and Curator of the annual Cinema Made In Italy programme, London.
Adrian is a recognised authority in various film/TV and literature subjects (Hollywood, crime and mystery and Italian Cinema amongst others) and regularly lectures, writes broadcasts and curates programmes on them. In 2012, Adrian received an Honorary Doctorate in the Arts and was appointed Visiting Professor of Film & Media at Norwich University of the Arts. In 2014, Adrian received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of East Anglia and in 2017 was awarded an OBE for Services to Film. Most recently, Adrian has led the BFC’s work to develop the COVID-19 Production Guidance for Film and High-end TV drama, as part of the BFI’s wider COVID-19 Screen Sector Recovery Task Force.
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