September 28 at 8pm BITE THE MANGO will close its festival with a screening of "A Winter Tale"(Canada, 2007, 100 mins.)

Frances-Anne Solomon, the director of the closing night film A Winter Tale will be attending and will be available for photographs and interview.

Frances-Anne Solomon is a director, producer and writer in film, TV, radio, theatre and new media. Born in England of Trinidadian parents, she was raised and educated in the Caribbean and Canada, lived and worked in the UK for several years, and has been based in Toronto since 1999.

Her directing credits include the feature film "Peggy Su!" (BBC Films, 1997), the dramas "What My Mother Told Me" (Channel 4 1995), and "Bideshi" (British Film Institute 1994); as well as a number of documentaries. She executive produced Love is the "Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon" starring Daniel Craig. Between 1992-98, Frances-Anne was a Producer and Executive Producer for BBC Single Drama & Films, responsible for several films and TV movies, including the Black Screen Strand (for black writers, producers and directors) and Screen on the Tube (for new feature directors).

Thursday 27 September at 3.30pm BITE THE MANGO will be screening "A Goat's Tail" GB/Ghana 2006 120 mins (adv 15)

Julius Amedume, director will be attending the screening of A Goat's Tail and will be available for photographs and interview.

Julius won a best Cinematography and Best Actor awards at the Kent Film festival for The Meeting and Best Screen play award for The Phone Call at BFM (Black Filmmaker International Film Festival). He then won a Millennium Award to make his short film The Video Tape. Julius has also been nominated for an Emerging Talent award at the Screen Nation film and television awards plus a Ghana Professional Achievement award.

The 13th Bite the Mango festival will open with a BAFTA and O2 Special Preview of the film ‘Partition’ which will be introduced by director Vic Sarin in his first visit to this exciting festival of world cinema.

Set against the backdrop of the political and religious events in India following the Second World War, Partition is a love story that develops during the upheavals caused when India is granted independence. Starring Jimi Mistry (The Guru, East is East) and Kristin Kreuk (Smallville), the film tells the story of two people from different religious backgrounds and how their tolerance isn’t shared by everyone.

Now in its 13th year the festival, which runs from Friday 21st September to Thursday 27th September, promises a packed schedule of guest appearances, UK premieres and previews and a full weekend of industry talks and workshops. Over 80 films will be screened from around the world including Canada, India, Taiwan, the United States, South Asia and the Far East as well as the best home-grown talent from the UK. There will be a focus on the 60th Anniversary of the partition of India and Pakistan and a series of films from Iran and South America.

The festival will play host to a number of premieres which include Anuranan, the first Bengali film to be shot in the UK and featuring breathtaking scenery of the different locations in both India and the UK, British film Crossing Bridges directed by Mark Norfolk in which a suicidal man meets an angel and Manorama Six Feet Under, director Navdeep Singh pays homage to the film noir genre with story about a government engineer who dreams of writing detective fiction.

The films of the finalists and winner of the Satyajit Ray Foundation’s Short Film Competition, in association with The British Council and the British Film Institute, will be screened at the festival. The competition is aimed at encouraging UK based film makers to explore the cultural diversity and experiences of South Asians, either within those countries, the UK or the Diaspora.

Award-winning director Jamil Dehlavi is set to attend Bite the Mango as part of a retrospective of his work featuring five of his films including Infinite Justice, the story of an American reporter held hostage by a fundamentalist group in Karachi in protest against the release of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Other works to be shown include Jinnah, Immaculate Conception and Passover.

Another highlight is Slices of Mango, a collection of short films made by new and budding film makers from around the world screened as part of the festival, many of which will be introduced by their directors.

Bite the Mango festival director Addy Rutter said: “This year’s festival promises to be an enthralling and action-packed programme that will introduce a range of new films to our audience. We look forward to welcoming visitors to Bite the Mango for what promises to be an exciting event.”

For further details and to book tickets please visit www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk or call the Box Office on 0870 7010200.