They are already calling it the Pinewood of the North and there isn't a trace of sarcasm in the description. The fallout from last year's pioneering Salford Film Festival has been immense, reaching out from the Manchester Ship Canal to Bafta, Robert Redford's Sundance festival, and - closer to home - Little Hulton.
The dormitory area of Little Hulton, off the M61, has just seen the opening of a big studio complex and editing suite, partly set aside for community film-makers' use, in the spirit of the Salford festival's belief in social regeneration via the silver screen.
The studios have also got a string of potential customers generated by the festival's success, plus a new commissioning group Creative Industry in Salford (CRIIS), which brings together potential funders.
Meanwhile, Reelmcr, the company whose films Gas & Air and WrecKeD were premiered at Salford in November (and featured in Society Guardian) are taking their teenage actors to Normandy for one of two films now in pre-production. Called The Lost Boy, it brings together Salford's kids and pensioners in a story of veterans returning to the D-day beaches.
Dean Hughes, one of the young actors who, pre-filming, were widely considered as nothing but trouble on their home patch of Langworthy, has landed a professional contract with Manchester's Contact theatre.
Hughes, who appeared in March in White Trash, a play about disillusioned kids in Manchester and Salford, sums up the festival's regeneration hopes. "There's nothing to do where I live in Salford and most people just look at you wanting trouble," he says.
"I never wanted to do acting before, but I do now. White Trash is very physical, with the dancing and all that, and I found the hugging hard 'cos I know what my mates would say. But it's made a difference to me. It makes you feel powerful - especially when people say that they like it."
Another festival spin-off sees copies of Gas & Air going into education packs on drug abuse and teenage pregnancy for every school in the country. New Salford productions include Snibbs' Secret, a community-made film for children from the company RipRoar, and Talking With Angels 2, a sequel to Talking With Angels, the most lauded work to date by the Langworthy teenagers. Directed by Yousaf Ali Khan, a Bafta award nominee, the film was singled out by Redford at Sundance this year for the fresh approach of its actors.
