2016 Leeds Digital Festival: Step back to the 90s

Lights, camera, action '“ that was the message yesterday as the Leeds Digital Festival got under way in style.
PREMIERE: A still from the film The City Talking: Tech in Leeds.PREMIERE: A still from the film The City Talking: Tech in Leeds.
PREMIERE: A still from the film The City Talking: Tech in Leeds.

The premiere of a documentary film exploring two decades of innovation and technology in the city took place last night at Leeds Dock.

And the creative team behind the film hope it will help spread the word far and wide about the digital revolution currently unfolding in Yorkshire’s unofficial capital.

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Lee Hicken, director of The City Talking: Tech In Leeds, told the Yorkshire Evening Post: “It starts out in the late 1990s.

“We were originally going to approach it purely chronologically but in the end we divided it up into different subject areas like games and sport and health.

“There are a lot of interviews and we have tried to make it as light as possible.

“There’s a bit of nostalgia in there as well, with a look at some of the websites we were using in the 1990s. I suppose you could label that ‘cringey cool’ stuff!”

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The 90-minute film has been put together over a period of six months by the same people responsible for Leeds’s The City Talking magazine, which is given away free in the YEP.

It will be made available to watch on the www.thecitytalking.com website in the next few days.

The film has been sponsored by Sky, Plusnet, Leeds City Council, HSCIC, LEP, Sky Bet and Leeds Dock.

Leeds Digital Festival runs until Friday and will feature dozens of events in 20 venues across Leeds, including Headrow House, Belgrave Music Hall and aql’s Salem Chapel.

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The festival has been organised by a steering group that comprises representatives of firms and schemes including Garbutt+Elliott, Berwins Solicitors, Jaywing, Futurelabs and Hebe Works.

It has also been timed to coincide with the run-up to this year’s Live At Leeds music extravaganza, which takes place on Saturday.

As revealed in yesterday’s YEP, around 5,000 jobs are expected to be created in the digital sector in Leeds over the next five years.