CURATOR of From Page to Screen Festival, Charles Sturridge, has been in conversation with Jessica Rees, talking about why he chose to get involved in Bridport's cultural highlight of the year, coming to town next week, and what can be expected from the film festival.

JR: What are you most looking forward to about the festival?

CS: Finally filmmaking is about the audience, and the most exciting thing about the festival is to bring films to a new audience.

Perhaps the newest audience will be for the screening of Lassie, which is exclusively for dogs! Well, they can bring a friend!

JR: Why did you want to get involved in the festival?

CS: Because I was asked, is the simple answer, but I do have a special interest which made me enthusiastic to take advantage of this particular opportunity.

I adapted the works of Evelyn Waugh, E M Forster, and Eric Knight, which has given me a particular interest in the mysterious alchemy of turning words into pictures, and thought into breath.

JR: What is your favourite piece you have worked on?

CS: Without doubt, the most formidable adaptation I worked on was the 1981 Granada Television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.

There are few examples of a 304 page novel making nearly twelve hours of screen time.

I had nine days to prepare for what became two years work. The conventional wisdom of the time was to speed up the action to make good television, but instead, we took the opposite decision, to slow the story down so that tiny events could have enormous reverberations.

Why do you think it is important to have a film festival and celebrate work?

We tend to see films in the context of their contemporary success or failure. The festival offers a chance to look at a wide selection of films in a different context, in relation to their underlying themes, their key creative participants and most importantly in relation to their source material.

We are fortunate to have a great line up of award winning guests to give extra perspectives on the works that we are screening.

What do you hope will be achieved by the festival and programme?

Continuity. Every festival of this kind relies of sponsorship and support, both locally and nationally, and each year is a struggle to survive.

A key part of our funding comes from selling tickets but above and beyond that the festival relies on both public and private support to keep it alive.

From Page to Screen festival, comes to Bridport on March, 30 and is running until April, 3. For more information and tickets visit frompagetoscreen.org.uk