Bradford City of Film

Welcome to Bradford, the world’s first UNESCO City of Film!

Bradford is the world’s first UNESCO City of Film. This permanent title bestows international recognition on Bradford as a world centre for film because of the city’s rich film heritage, its inspirational movie locations and its many celebrations of the moving image through the city’s annual film festivals. By 2020 Bradford will be the place to enjoy film, learn through and about film, make film and visit because of film.

Bradford has been a film location since the beginning of cinema, with its indigenous film industry being traced back to the years around the First World War. By then the residents of Bradford had already witnessed important contributions to cinema development, such as the invention of the Cieroscope in Manningham in 1896. One of the first cinema shows outside London took place on the site where the National Media Museum now stands, in a music hall known as the People’s Palace.