100 years of film in Bradford: How the West Yorkshire city became the Hollywood of the UK

People were amused when Bradford was named the world’s first Unesco City of Film in 2009. But with a filmmaking history that goes back further than Hollywood, the city is having the last laugh, says David Barnett

The 1959 classic ‘Room at the Top’ was shot in Bradford (Photos David Barnett)

In the spring of 2009, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation prepared to announce where in the world would become the very first place to be designated City of Film. Who would scoop this prestigious Unesco honour? Surely Los Angeles, whose Hollywood district is synonymous with film itself, was leading the field. Cannes, perhaps, or Venice, home of the world’s most glittering film festivals.

When the announcement came in June of that year, there was a collective, rather nonplussed pause. The first ever Unesco City of Film would be… Bradford, in West Yorkshire.

A decade ago, Bradford was rarely in the news for the right reasons. The riots of eight years previously were still being picked over and analysed as the city often found itself pitched as some kind of race relations battleground. The far-right British National Party had been making gains on the council for a couple of years and in 2010 the English Defence League would build up to a massive rally there. The global recession and subsequent credit crunch had hit Bradford particularly hard, evidenced by a huge hole in the city centre, where blocks of old shops had been demolished to make way for a shiny new shopping centre that was mothballed for years before a brick had even been laid due to the country being plunged into austerity.