Press Release
A Feast of film -
25 cinemas, 75 films, 150 screenings - Borderlines Film Festival
Contact:
Bill Laws 07742 825813;
Alison Chapman (images) 07969 393884
Date: 20th January 2008
Our county lanes will be bustling with first-night cinema goers in March as the sixth Borderlines Film Festival (March 28 - April 13th 2008) takes to the road.
But it will be some of the county's village halls that lay down the opening night red carpet.
Along with Ledbury's Market Theatre, nine villages from Burghill, Bodenham, Bosbury and Ewyas Harold to Garway, Gorsley, Moccas and Little Dewchurch will turn their parish rooms into picture palaces.
Screenings include contemporary classics - And When Did You Last See Your Father?, This Is England, Ten Canoes and The Counterfeiters - and new releases like Brick Lane, Lady Chatterley and the Cannes Prize winner, The Band's Visit.
At Garway village hall, Margaret Oke and Cecibel Egan will be setting out the seats for The Band's Visit.
"It's a real community event," explains Margaret. "We may not have a slick auditorium with wrap around sound, but it's comfortable - people bring their own cushions - and there's tea and home-made cakes to follow the film."
The springtime Festival is focused on The Courtyard, Hereford and Ludlow Assembly Rooms. Between them these two venues will screen 30 contemporary films and a host of events including the Great European Directors season: expect to see masterpieces like Pedro Almodovar's Women On the Edge of A Nervous Breakdown, Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal or Luis Bunuel's Belle de Jour.
Meanwhile organisers are predicting a sell out for A Garden Miscellany, the British Film Insitute's collection of archive and documentary garden films, and for pianist Paul Shallcross' live accompaniment of Buster Keaton's final classic, The Cameraman.
Borderlines' partnerships with Arts Alive's Flicks in the Sticks, and its previous guest list of people like Jo Brand, Monty Don, Sophie Fiennes, Stephen Frears (The Queen) and former Film Night front man Barry Norman, has proved a winning formula for what has become Britain's biggest rural film festival.
David Gillam is Festival Director: "Normally you'd be hard pressed to find many of these films being screened outside our major cities. Combining the best of world cinema with friendly, local venues seems to be doing the trick."
Borderlines' audiences rose to a record 10,000 in 2007. As Hereford film enthusiast Kathy Gray puts it: "Borderlines gives you a taste of that communal movie-going experience where the projectionist takes your ticket and, if it's a village screening, makes the tea too!"
Ends
Notes to editors.
- Borderlines runs from March 28th and to April 12th 2008.
- Picture captions:
- Cecibel Egan prepares for a Borderlines premiere in Garway Village Hall.
- Post mortem: Garway villagers discuss the movie after a screening in the village hall.
- Stills from: No Country for Old Men; Lust, Caution; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
- 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