British Cult Cinema - Guest: 

Born in Jamaica to British parents, Martine Beswick always knew she wanted to be an actress. In her twenties, the exotic beauty moved to London where she got her first acting gig as a Bond girl in From Russia with Love. She became an instant hit thanks to her part as gypsy girl Zora in the movie’s all-out “catfight” scene, putting her claws into former Miss Israel Aliza Gur. Her second Bond role, this time in Thunderball as a secret agent in a microscopic bikini, gave her career an important push. At this point the casting agencies seemed to have categorized her as “bikini catfight” extraordinaire, because her next role in One Million Years B.C. found her pulling at Raquel Welch’s hair wearing little more than a scanty fur concoction. Apart from the spaghetti western A Bullet for the General, she continued to make her mark in the Hammer studios: the crazy camp film Slave Girls and her role in the classic gender-bender Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde contain some of her most outstanding work. Her move to Hollywood was met with some television gigs and the odd film role, most notably as Xaviera Hollander in The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood.

Martine Beswick is guest of the festival and will personally present her films.