Lord Puttnam to open GameCity

Nottingham's GameCity festival is to be opened by former National Film and Television School chairman Lord Puttnam.

Puttnam became the first European-born boss of Hollywood's Columbia Studios and later went on to found SkillSet, which trains young people to become members of the film and television industries.

"Videogames are at the cutting edge of the future of the creative industries in the UK and it's an index of the success of their journey into mainstream culture that something like GameCity is able to happen at all," commented Puttnam.

"Videogame culture is important and the ability of videogames to celebrate and translate themselves to new audiences through inclusive and innovative events like GameCity is massively encouraging in a sector so often under attack from the mainstream," he added.

Puttnam will open the festival on October 25th at Nottingham Council House, before the European premier of the Into the Pixel exhibition. GameCity runs from October 25th to the 29th.