14th September 2006. Nottingham, UK. This year sees the launch of GameCity, an independent annual festival of interactive entertainment which takes place in Nottingham during October's half term. The groundbreaking festival will be held at venues across Nottingham in what organisers describe will be a 'street-level cultural celebration of videogames and interactive entertainment'.

GameCity is proud to announce that its 2006 festival will be opened by Lord Puttnam of Queensgate on the 25th October. In a special event at the Council House in the Old Market Square of Nottingham, Lord Puttnam will attend the private view of the 'Into The Pixel' exhibition of videogame artwork - which is being seen for the first time ever outside of the USA at GameCity – where he will open the festival itself.

In the eighties, Puttnam became the first European-born boss of the Hollywood Studio, Columbia. He returned to the UK and was appointed the chairman of the National Film and Television School and since retiring from film-making, has channelled his energy into education. Later, he founded SkillSet, which trains young people to become members of the film and television industries.

Lord Puttnam commented, "I'm delighted to be able to open this first GameCity festival in Nottingham. Videogames are at the cutting edge of the future of the creative industries in the UK and it's an index of the success of their journey into mainstream culture that something like GameCity is able to happen at all. It's particularly appropriate that the event should be happening in the East Midlands, one of the regions most noted for its extraordinary successes in game development. It's surely only though true collaboration between the public and private sectors that real cultural longevity is going to be achieved. Videogame culture is important and the ability of videogames to celebrate and translate themselves to new audiences through inclusive and innovative events like GameCity is massively encouraging in a sector so often under attack from the mainstream."

Festival Director Iain Simons added, "We're honoured and delighted that David Puttnam has chosen to lend his support to GameCity. He's an absolute inspiration to anyone who's been at the intersection of creativity and money, I can't think of anyone more appropriate to launch the festival."

Nottingham Trent University is a lead partner GameCity. As a recognised centre of excellence in the field of interactive technologies, science, arts and psychology, experts from the university will be helping to organise the festival as well as running a number of associated events.