Paul Schrader to attend Nottingham's first ScreenLit fest

Schrader, the writer of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and whose own directorial credits include Cat People, Light Sleeper, Blue Collar and American Gigolo, will receive the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Screenwriting.

Linda Pariser, festival director, said: “Schrader’s decades as a screenwriter have been defined by an unflinching commitment and a deeply ingrained love of cinema and its rich history. We can think of no better recipient to launch this new annual award.”

While in Nottingham, Schrader will present a Screenwriting Masterclass and take part in Q&A events following the first UK screening of the restored, new version of Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters and the UK Premiere of Adam Resurrected.

The festival will also show Taxi Driver and The Comfort of Strangers directed by Schrader and scripted by Harold Pinter.  

ScreenLit will open with the UK premiere of Anne Fontaine’s Coco Before Chanel, and close on Sunday 5 July with the English premiere of Unmade Bedsby UK-based Argentinean filmmaker Alexis Dos Santos. 

Other film highlights include a preview of Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine: Public Enemy Number 1 starring Vincent Cassel, a rare opportunity to see Jack Cardiff’s Sons and Lovers (1960) adapted from the novel by Nottinghamshire’s own DH Lawrence. The will also be  previews of Atom Egoyan’s Adoration and Oscar-nominated Frozen River – directed and written by Courtney Hunt. 

Other special guests due in town include screenwriters Michael Eaton introducing Fellow Traveller, Jimmy McGovern discussing Hillsborough, and Guy Hibbert, winner of the World Cinema Screenwriting Award at this years’ Sundance Film Festival, talking about Five Minutes of Heaven with the BBC’s creative director of new writing, Kate Rowland.  

James Harkin, the writer and director of talks at the ICA, will also be at the festival giving an illustrated talk about his book Cyburbia; Film London boss Adrian Wootton who will present a talk chronicling the career of Raymond Chandler to mark 50 years since his death; and Lynn Barber, who will be discussing her book An Education, which has been made into a film by Lone Scherfig.

Meanwhile, Adam Thorpe will read from his new book Hodd, a radical reworking of the Robin Hood story, biographer Miranda Seymour will read from her new book Chaplin’s Girl, and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce will discuss the journey from book to screen of his Carnegie Medal winner, Millions.

Broadway Cinema has secured three-year funding for ScreenLit from the Greater Nottingham Partnership.