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Beyond the BAFTAs with Borderlines Film Festival
Contact: Jo Comino 07572 442903; Alison Chapman (images) 07969 393884
Date: 14th February 2011
Beyond the BAFTAs with Borderlines Film Festival
The King’s Speech may have swept the board with seven awards at the BAFTA ceremony a week ago but in just over a month’s time, Borderlines Film Festival is set to lavish a much more richly varied sample of cinematic delights on audiences in Herefordshire, Shropshire and the Marches.
As well as top contenders Black Swan (which won Natalie Portman the leading Actress award) and True Grit (winner of the BAFTA for Best Cinematography) Borderlines films this year include Biutiful, which has earned Javier Bardem a fully-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Actor, and the understated Never Let Me Go, an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel about the fragility of love in a chilling, alternative present.
Screening in a remarkable 37 venues from steel and glass arts centres, stuccoed assembly rooms, Norman churches, the back rooms of pubs, innumerable village halls and even in an renovated 1960s 22-seater Moviebus, the Festival enters several new dimensions in this its ninth year.
An extended programme of live but film-related events in Herefordshire market towns and villages kicks off at Ledbury’s Market Theatre with Jo Brand revealing her Desert Island Films to The Film Programme’s Francine Stock.
Fresh from touring with Paul Merton, unrivalled silent film pianist Neil Brand presents his rib-tickling one-man show at Cawley Hall, Eye, near Leominster. These events have been made possible through the Herefordshire Leader programme (part funded by the European Union (EAFRD) and Defra).
Back at The Courtyard in Hereford, in association with BAFTA the Film Festival is delighted to present In Conversation one of Britain’s leading directors, Nicolas Roeg, three of whose films appeared in Time Out’s recent poll of top British films, including Don’t Look Now in the number one slot. Showing alongside, Roeg’s soon to be re-released Walkabout.
Borderlines also has the pleasure this year of premiering its very own award ceremony, Under Open Skies. In honour of Herefordshire amateur film-maker Harry Williamson, the awards will be given to the best documentaries, amateur and professional, about Britain’s natural world
There’s the usual mix of classics from Some Like It Hot to Rashomon (the most influential Japanese film ever made), local archive film, some fabulous animation both for adults, the stirring Cuban rhythms of Chico and Rita, as well as for children (Tangled, Despicable Me), stunning world cinema from Australia, (Samson and Delilah, Animal Kingdom) to Mexico (Circo, Norteado) and to Wales for two separate excursions to the tip of South America (Separado! and Patagonia).
Meanwhile music resounds from Hereford’s own legendary rock band in attendance for the opening night screening of The Ballad of Mott the Hoople to musical genius Steven Severin, ex-Siousxie and the Banshees bass-player and co-founder, who performs his live score to Jean Cocteau’s scandalous 1930 film Blood of a Poet.
Says Borderlines Executive Director, Naomi Vera-Sanso, “We’re very excited to bring so many talented people and exceptional films to the area; this is the best, most ambitious Festival we’ve ever mounted.”
The Festival pays its respect to actor and Shropshire resident, Pete Postlethwaite, whose death was announced in the New Year, showing two of his films, Distant Voices Still Lives and, prior to its UK release, a BAFTA Gala screening of Killing Bono, his last role.
Details of all Borderlines Film Festival events can be found at www.borderlinesfilmfestival.org and booking for films and events at The Courtyard has now commenced.
ENDS
Editorial notes
1. Borderlines runs for 17 days from Friday 25 March to Sunday 10 April 2011, 80 films and over 200 screenings and events.
http://www.borderlinesfilmfestival.org
2. Venues include All Stretton, Aston on Clun, Bedstone, Bishops Castle, Bodenham, Bosbury, Brilley, Bromyard, Chapel Lawn, Church Stretton, Clungunford, Dilwyn, Dorstone, Ewyas Harold, Eye, Garway, Goodrich, Hay on Wye, Hereford, Kington, Ledbury, Leintwardine, Leominster, Lingen, Ludlow, Michaelchurch Escley, Moccas, Peterchurch, Presteigne, Pudleston, Ross on Wye, Tarrington, Wem
.
3. Borderlines Film Festival is funded by Screen WM (with the UK Film Council), Herefordshire Council, The Elmley Foundation, Hereford City Council, the Herefordshire Leader programme (part funded by the European Union (EAFRD) and Defra) and the Shropshire Screen Consortium, through the UKFC Rural Cinema Pilot Scheme.
4. Image Captions:
· Natalie Portman in Black Swan
· Javier Bardem in Biutiful
· Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield in Never Let Me Go
· Pete Postlethwaite in Killing Bono
· Jo Brand
· David Gulpilil in Walkabout
Further images are available if required, please contact Alison Chapman on 07969 393884.