AN AWARD-winning director will curate this year’s From Page to Screen Festival in Bridport.

Charles Sturridge has been confirmed as the curator as preparations take place for the event to return to the town from Wednesday, March 30 to Sunday, April 3.

Carol and The Lady In The Van are the first films to be confirmed for the festival.

Charles said: “I was very excited to be asked to curate the From Page To Screen festival.

“The connection between literature and film has always fascinated me and I have had the privilege of adapting great authors like Evelyn Waugh, EM Forster and Daphne Du Maurier.

“Film is a voracious medium, sucking up books, plays, comics, even newspaper articles and adapting them to it’s own form. The Page to Screen Festival is a chance to celebrate this and to share the experiences of some of the people involved.”

Charles Sturridge made his film debut as an actor in Lindsay Anderson’s If but is best known as a director. His early television work included Coronation Street and in 1981 he directed the seminal production of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited starring Jeremy Irons, which won two Golden Globes and six BAFTAs.

Throughout his career he has written and directed many award-winning programmes including Gulliver’s Travels, Longitude, Shackleton, The Road To Coronation Street and The Scapegoat, and most recently he completed work on Churchill’s Secret with Michael Gambon for ITV, which will be shown in the spring.

Charles has worked with a host of famous people including Laurence Olivier, Helen Mirren, Alec Guinness, Lauren Bacall, Peter O’Toole, Jeanne Moreau, Eileen Atkins, Sheridan Smith, Romola Garai and Kenneth Branagh to name but a few.

Charles’ films include: Runners (1982), A Handful of Dust (1988), E.M. Forster’s Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991), both of which he co-wrote, and Fairytale – A True Story (1997) which won the British Academy award for Best Children’s Film in 1998. In 2006 he wrote and directed an adaptation of Eric Knight’s classic novel Lassie.

With such an illustrious career it is no surprise that Charles Sturridge has already managed to secure speakers to take part in From Page To Screen.

A highlight promises to be Alex Jennings, star of The Lady In The Van, who will be speaking before a screening of the film which was both critically and publicly acclaimed.

Actress Claire Bloom will speak about The Spy Who Came in From The Cold as part of a John Le Carre tribute. The 50th Anniversary of Evelyn Waugh’s death will also be marked and composer Adrian Johnston will perform a live score to Murneau’s brilliant 1922 Bram Stoker adaptation, Nosferatu.

Full details of the programme will be released next month.

For more information, visit frompagetoscreen.org.uk