The National Science and Media Museum’s Pictureville Cinema will host two specially curated seasons this June, as part of an ongoing collaboration with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.
The seasons, Northern Youth and A Time and A Place, showcase Pictureville’s ongoing commitment as Yorkshire’s largest independent cinema to providing unique and thoughtfully curated cinema experiences to its audiences. Both seasons look to Bradford’s status as the UK’s ‘youngest city’ – with over a third of its population aged under 25 – placing emphasis on coming-of-age narratives and diverse explorations of identity that have their roots in the region.
Northern Youth
30 May – 13 June
Northern Youth captures the punky and poetic spirit of young northern characters in British cinema. Specially curated by Bradford-born director Dominic Leclerc (Sex Education, Shameless, Skins), the season covers six decades of bold, raw and rebellious storytelling from across the North.
Running 30 May to 13 June, the season includes special guest appearances throughout. Opening night film How To Have Sex¸(30 May) will be introduced by Dominic Leclerc and followed by a Q&A with actor Shaun Thomas and producer Ivana MacKinnon. Highlights include a screening of East is East (7 June) in partnership with the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA), with special guests Nick Ahad (BBC Front Row) and actor Chris Bisson, as well as The Long Day Closes (8 June), followed by a Q&A with actor Tina Malone. Elsewhere in the season, audiences can look forward to Shane Meadow’s seminal classic This is England (31 May) with writer and broadcaster Terri White, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1 June) with film historian Melanie Williams, and Ian Curtis biopic Control, with guest music journalist Dave Simpson.
The season offers a rare chance to revisit iconic titles or discover new voices, all united by a fierce sense of identity. Northern Youth is a powerful celebration of northern identity on screen, amplifying bold voices, untold stories and the vibrant spirit of adolescence.
Dominic Leclerc, curator of Northern Youth, commented: “Northern Youth is a filmic deep-dive into the hearts and souls of characters on the cusp of adulthood. Poetic, punky and passionate – this season of extraordinary films celebrates the complexity, beauty and wonder of youth, and asks the question: what happens when the emotional geography of adolescence intersects with one’s regional identity? From rural Yorkshire landscapes to the gritty backstreets of Salford, come and take a northern road trip to the heartland of youth.”
A Time and A Place
19 – 25 June
Curated by archive activist feminist film collective Invisible Women, A Time and A Placetakes inspiration both from Bradford’s diasporic history alongside its youth. A Time and A Place shines a spotlight on stories of youth and identity from those who have since made Bradford home, from post-war German, Hungarian and Ukrainian communities to the Irish and Pakistani migrants who helped shape its industrial story.
From Mädchen in Uniform (1931), a quietly radical queer coming of age story exploring rebellion under rising authoritarianism, right through to Fawzia Mirza’s semi-autobiographical debut The Queen of My Dreams (2023), the season charts almost a century of women’s voices in film.
The season opens with My Twentieth Century (1989), Ildikó Enyedi’s counter-historical Cannes Camera d’Or winning debut exploring fate, identity and sisterhood in early 20th century Hungary, and continues to explore ideas of adolescence and self-discovery across cultural contexts. In Hush-A-Bye Baby (1989), teenage girls navigate love, loss and reproductive rights amid the Troubles in Northern Ireland, while in The Long Farewell (1971), a Soviet mother and son struggle with the pain of separation and shifting identities.
Each film in A Time and A Place offers a powerful exploration of growing up across borders and generations, whilst highlighting women’s stories that have shaped the history of cinema and continue to inspire new voices today.
