Special opportunity to attend Cheltenham International Film Festival’s event Adding Colour: Diversity & British Cinema

**Please note this is an in-person event.**

Monday 04 October | 17:30-19:30

Parabola Arts Centre | Parabola Road | Cheltenham | GL50 3AA

A special opportunity for WFTV members to attend Cheltenham International Film Festival’s event Adding Colour: Diversity & British Cinema – Lecture by Baroness Lola Young.

In recognition of Black History Month, Baroness Lola Young delivers the inaugural Cheltenham International Film Festival Lecture. The annual film lecture is co-presented and hosted by Cheltenham Ladies’ College with the support of Spirax Sarco Cheltenham, Wiggin LLP and Cheltenham Borough Council.

This event is open to the public and schools. If you would like to speak to the event organiser to find out more about the Covid event policy, please contact Leslie Sheldon at lmsheldon@cheltfilm.com.

Baroness Lola Young received a diploma in dramatic arts in 1975 from the New College of Speech and Drama and one year later gained a teaching certificate. In 1988 she graduated from Middlesex Polytechnic with a Bachelor of Arts in Contemporary Cultural Studies.

Lola Young worked as a professional actress from 1976-1984 and presented a number of BBC programmes aimed at young children such as Play School and Listening Corner and Playtime BBC Radio 4. 

From 1990 to 1992, Lola Young was lecturer in media studies at the Polytechnic of West London. In the following she was lecturer, senior lecturer, principal lecturer, Professor of cultural studies and in the end Emeritus professor at Middlesex University. In 1995 she published Fear of the Dark: Race, Gender and Sexuality in Cinema.

Lola Young became Project Director of the Archives and Museum of Black Heritage in 1997, she was Commissioner in the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts in the years 2000 and 2001, and Chair at Nitro Theatre Company in 2004.

Lola Young was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2001 New Year Honours for services to British Black History. From 2001 to 2004 she was head of culture at the GreaterLondon Authority, following which she was created a life peer on 22 June 2004 taking the title BaronessYoung of Hornsey of Hornsey in the London Borough of Haringey.

Lola Young’s other public appointments have included English Heritage's Blue Plaques Committee, membership of the board of the Royal National Theatre, the South Bank Centre, and the board of Governors of Middlesex University, chairing the Arts Council's Cultural Diversity Panel, and membership of the board of Resource, the Council of Museums, Archives and Libraries, and a commissioner on the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts. She has also chaired the judging panel of the Orange Prize for Fiction.

In 2013, she was a signatory to a campaign for women to be able to inherit noble titles. In 2017 Lola Young chaired the judging panel for the Booker Prize. In 2019, she was awarded a Doctor of Laws honoris causa from The University of Nottingham. Lola Young is co-chair, with Sir David Bell, of the Foundation for Future London. In 2020, she became Chancellor of The University of Nottingham succeeding the former chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, Sir Andrew Witty.

Once you RSVP for this event, you will then receive further information on how to complete your registration in a confirmation email.