A biennial festival celebrating how Bristol born Archie Leach changed his name and his fortunes to become internationally famous film star Cary Grant, yet never forgot his Bristol roots. This year’s festival is themed around Hitchcock and Cary Grant and we’ve got ambitious plans to take the next festival to New York in 2020 to celebrate 100 years since Archie started on his journey to becoming Cary Grant. Please support us by buying our Official Festival Merchandise, or donate using the button below.

BFI Season Intro

In this illustrated talk our festival director, Dr Charlotte Crofts (UWE Bristol) will explore Grant’s very British roots and how they inform and complicate his star image – that unique blend of the sophisticated and the screwball that led to film critic Pauline Kael branding him “a slapstick Prince Charming” and to David Thompson hailing him as “the best and most important actor in the history of Hollywood”.

2020 Festival

Our next Cary Comes Home weekend in Bristol will be 20-22 November 2020 and we’re also working on taking the festival to New York City in July 2020 – the 100-year anniversary of Archie Leach’s emigration to New York – so the Big Apple will feature in our programming and we’ll be retracing Cary Grant’s NY locations and film sets.

ARCHIVE

Cary Comes Home For The Weekend is a biennial festival. The first festival took place in October 2014 with a gala double bill at the Bristol Hippodrome, talks at Watershed, cream teas and cocktails. The second festival took place during Bristol Harbour Festival, celebrating Cary Grant’s sea-faring connections in July 2016 with a gala at…