(GayWebSource.com – Gay News & Press Network) – Posted by Jake Simpson – TheGayUK.com

The Into Film Festival, hosted by education charity Into Film and supported by Cinema First and the BFI through Lottery funding, is a major cultural and educational event taking place across the UK for free as part of an on-going initiative to use the medium of film and filmmaking as a learning tool, the festival started on the 4th November and is running until the 21st.

As part of the Into Film Festival, Into film had an exclusive chat with legendary British actor Sir Ian McKellen, star of huge films such as The Da Vinci Code, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, about the Into Film festival, and why going to the cinema is so important. Sir Ian’s stand out film on the festival programme is Pride, the true story of gay rights group Lesbians and Gays support the Miners. He said:

“Pride is a recent film I enjoyed so much I laughed and cried almost at the same time. Before I got involved as an openly gay man there were others who understood the unfairness that gay people found themselves in in this country, and this is a wonderful heart warming story about recent history which children may be surprised at.

When it comes to educating the younger generation McKellen is very proactive, supporting a variety of charities, including Into Film:

‘I visit schools and it’s wonderful the simple acceptance and honesty the kids have by their nature to accept other people, to celebrate difference in the sense that we are all equal, this pervades decent education in this country and Pride is great support to anyone wanting to encourage those attitudes of openness and acceptance’

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Sir Ian also spoke to Into Film about his early experiences with cinema saying,

‘We didn’t go much to the pictures in Wigan in the 1940s, the cinemas were rather unsavoury places. You were likely to come home with little creatures accompanying you and I think my parents were quite rather snobbish about cinema. They thought it was a place for low class entertainment, well they were wrong’

Tickets for the Into Film Festival are available to book for free at: http://www.intofilm.org/festival

Media Provided by the GayWebSource.com – Gay News & Press Network.
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