Phillip Bergson is a BBC broadcaster, arts critic, and cineaste.
While attending Bradford Grammar School in his native West Yorkshire, he won the New Statesman's Student Journalist of the Year competition with a satiric feature on "The Rape of the Cinema".
With the prize money he attended the Venice Film Festival and his vacation became a vocation.
As a Classics Scholar at Balliol College, he founded the Oxford Film Festival, the first competitive event for feature films ever held in Great Britain, and on graduating was selected by The Sunday Times as a "New Critic".and by BBC Radio as a regular reviewer, interviewer, script-writer and presenter.
He has contributed articles to a variety of publications and programmes on TV, online. in print, and interviewed many Hollywood legends in several languages,(including Sergio Leone in Latin) working also a consultant at the European Script Fund, casting agent, Jury Member and co-organiser of countless film festivals from Madrid to Mannheim, Rotterdam to Rio, and Chicago to Tashkent.
An occasional actor, he created the "Eurovisions" cinema project at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, and has organised many film premieres, panels, and seasons, and masterclasses in the Prague Film School and other venues.
He will outline the history and development of the phenomenon of the film festival, with anecdotes of red faces on the red carpets and behind-the-scenes revelations of the rivalries between Cannes, Berlin and Venice, and how the festival circuit (of over 2,000 annual events) is currently coping with more recent Interesting Times, and is adapting to the Curse of Cathay and other COVID crises.
The presentation will be followed by a Q & A session.
