The guest speakers for this year's From Page to Screen festival have been confirmed.

A silver lining of the Bridport festival being online is the opportunity to invite outstanding guest speakers to join the event from anywhere in the world.

Here's who will be speaking:

The Mauritanian - Thursday, April 22

Edith Bowman will be talking to director Kevin Macdonald in Wales with Mohamedou Ould Slahi in Mauritania about how his memoir 'Guantanamo Diary' - documenting the 14 years he spent without charge and experiencing torture in the US detention camp - inspired Macdonald's new film 'The Mauritanian'.

Edith presented the BAFTAs on Sunday night and will be curating From Page to Screen in 2022.

The Father - Friday, April 23 - preview screening

Sir Christopher Hampton CBE will be joining writer and broadcaster Francine Stock to discuss his incredible career in theatre and film, including his latest BAFTA-winning screenplay for The Father.

Novelist, critic and cinephile, Francine presents The Film Programme on Radio 4 and in 2011 wrote 'In Glorious Technicolour : A Century In Film and how it has Shaped Us'. She is making a welcome guest return to From Page to Screen after curating it in 2012.

Christopher Hampton is the Academy Awards nominee for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Father, the play by co-screenwriter and director Florian Zeller that he translated in 2016. The film is a powerful, moving evocation of a father, played by Antony Hopkins, unravelling with dementia, and the daughter - Olivia Colman - struggling to cope with his care.

This is Hampton's third Academy Awards nomination after the 1988 adaptation of his own play Dangerous Liaisons and 2007's Atonement.

Hopkins, 84, has just won his third BAFTA as best actor in The Father and From Page to Screen is a chance to see a preview screening of this deeply affecting multi-award-winning film.

Ammonite - Saturday, April 24

Acclaimed actress Gemma Jones will be in conversation with Nic Jeune, one of the festival's co-founders. Nic has recently returned to his first passion for acting after a long career in film producing.

Gemma has been on stage and screen for nearly 60 years and has appeared in several brilliant adaptations including 1995's Sense And Sensibility as Mrs Dashwood, from 2001 as Bridget Jones's mother throughout the trilogy and in 2002 to 2011 she starred as Madam Poppy Pomfrey in the Harry Potter movies.

Her latest release is Ammonite in which she plays Mary's Anning's mother, Molly, and is reunited with screen 'daughter' Kate Winslet - 25 years after they appeared in Ang Lee's superb depiction of Jane Austen's Dashwood family.

Ammonite is the second film she has made with rising star Francis Lee after his 2017 debut feature God's Own Country.

Nic Jeune said: "This year From Page to Screen has to be online and though we'll miss being amid those lively, live audiences in the Bridport Arts Centre and the Electric Palace, a silver-lining is being able to invite brilliant speakers from wherever they are to give the festival the inside story on their films and careers.

"I'm really looking forward to speaking to the wonderful actress Gemma Jones about her six decades of stage and film, including beloved cinematic adaptations like Sense and Sensibility, and the Bridget Jones and Harry Potter films.

"In the past year she has continued filming during lockdowns after most recently starring in Ammonite as Mary Anning's mother - reunited with on-screen 'daughter' Kate Winslet 25 years after they played Jane Austen's Dashwood family together."

For more information about From Page to Screen and to buy tickets, visit frompagetoscreen.info

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