Press Release
Borderlines Film Festival -
75 films, 25 cinemas and Terry Jones, Monty Don and director Jan Dunn
Contact:
Bill Laws 07742 825813;
Alison Chapman (images) 07969 393884
Date: 16th March 2008
As this year's Borderlines Film Festival rolls out across the region's village halls on Friday March 28, gardening guru Monty Don has announced he will join in the Borderlines Debate on the future of our countryside.
The sixth Borderlines Festival will formally open in Bodenham, Bosbury, Ewyas Harold, Little Dewchurch, Gorsley, Moccas, Burghill, Garway, Presteigne and the Market Theatre in Ledbury.
"It's the nation's biggest rural film festival," explains Festival director David Gillam, "so it seemed appropriate to screen some of the best films like The Counterfeiters, Ten Canoes, The Band's Visit, Brick Lane and This is England in the countryside."
As the Courtyard, Hereford opens with No Country for Old Men, winner of four Oscars including Best Director and Best Picture, Ross, All Stretton, Leominster, Michaelchurch Escley, Brilley, Leintwardine, Fownhope will join in the Festival.
More than 50 speakers, Monty Python's Terry Jones, gardening's Monty Don, film maker John Bulmer, the Archers' Graham Harvey and director Jan Dunn among them, are coming to this, the sixth Borderlines. The Festival hots up over the weekend of April 5 and 6 with Terry Jones introducing Le Million and Graeme Hobbs presenting Alice, as part of the Great European Directors season.
Also on Saturday April 5 director Jan Dunn and producer Elaine Wickham introduce the first public screening of their latest film, Ruby Blue that features the most wonderful performance of Bob Hoskins' long and illustrious career.
On Sunday April 6 local classics get some screen time when director Naomi Vera-Sanso introduces her Wartime Secrets, the inside story of a secret war factory hidden in the heart of Hereford, and Real Life on the Black Mountains, a celebration of hill farming life captured on cine film by a Herefordshire housekeeper.
Earlier on April 6 Powell and Pressburger's film of Shropshire's novelist Mary Webb's Gone To Earth is screened in Hereford. (On April 13 Gone To Earth will be shown at Tenbury Wells' newly restored The Regal).
On The Black Hill, filmed on the Borders and ever popular with the local audiences county is screened on April 7 and 8.
Film discussion and debate continues through the week with renowned local filmmaker John Bulmer presenting clips from his documentary favourites and a screening of Dancing with Llamas (April 9); the Me-We Anti Racism event; and, after the screening of A Crude Awakening, a debate about 'peak oil' and its impact on all our lives (both April 8).
The future of the Borders' countryside, the state of farming and the food we eat comes under the spotlight during the Borderlines Debate (New Rural Perspectives, Hereford April 12) when Monty Don, Graham Harvey (the Archers' agricultural story editor) and film-maker Molly Dineen discuss the myth of the rural idyll after a screening of Dineen's The Lie of the Land. The debate will include a showing of the stunning documentary on modern farming, Our Daily Bread.
On April 13 Jungian analyst, writer, filmmaker, broadcaster and lecturer, Christopher Hauke, explores the collective creativity involved in film making in What Makes Movies Work?
"Tickets are already selling well and we're looking forward to a rich, seventeen days of film and film events," says David Gillam
Ends
Notes to editors.
- Borderlines runs from March 28th and to April 12th 2008.
- Stills from: Our Daily Bread; No Country for Old Men; Jan Dunn and Elaine Wickham; Terry Jones
- Borderlines Film Festival is funded by Screen WM through the Access Fund and the National Lottery through the UK Film Council, Herefordshire Council, the Elmley Foundation, South Shropshire District Council, the Nexus Grant Programme (supporting the Rural Regeneration Zone in the West Midlands through the West Midlands Rural Community Council), the Rural Regeneration Zone and Arts and Business.
- Screen WM is the regional agency that supports, promotes and develops a sustainable and thriving screen media sector in the West Midlands. Screen WM will:
- promote the West Midlands region by raising the profile of its diverse locations.
- promote the West Midlands by highlighting the abundance of talent within the region's screen media sector support businesses through skills development and financial assistance.
- develop talent, from new entrants to professional freelancers and employees, wthin the West Midlands through skills development.
- support the region's moving image heritage and develop access to it.
- develop and inspire audiences across a broad range of screen media.
- promote and develop the cultural diversity of the region through the moving image.
- Press queries? Call Alison Chapman on 07969 393884 / alisonc@borderlinesfilmfestival.co.uk, David Gillam on 01239 615066 or Bill Laws 07742 825813