ONE of the region's universities has appointed its first ever professor of film and TV.

Richard Woolley, 57, is a film-maker and screenwriter with a background in experimental and art-house movies, mainstream screenwriting, and fringe theatre.

Currently dean of film and television at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, he will take up the Greg Dyke chair of film and television at York University in September.

Mr Woolley will be the founding head of a new department of theatre, film and television destined to be built on the university's proposed Heslington East expansion.

Mr Woolley has strong links with the Yorkshire area. He helped to set up the Yorkshire Film Centre, in Leeds, in the 1980s, and later established the Northern School of Film and Television in Leeds with the support of Yorkshire Television, Channel 4, and Leeds Metropolitan University.

Published: 26/02/2005