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Borderlines Film Festival attendances up by 10%
Contact: Jo Comino 07572 442903; Alison Chapman (images) 07969 393884
Date: 11th April 2011
Borderlines Film Festival attendances up by 10%
Forget the BAFTAS and the Oscars - last weekend saw the award ceremony for Herefordshire’s own national film prize, the Borderlines’ Under Open Skies award. The Award winners, for the best professional and amateur natural history documentaries, were announced over the closing weekend of Borderlines Film Festival at The Courtyard, Hereford (April 9).
The professional prize went to celebrated Wild Places’ author Robert Macfarlane fronted film, The Wild Places of Essex, directed by Andrew Graham-Brown, capturing on film such evocative moments as “trees like tattoed circusmen,” and “the silence of falling snow,” while Hudson’s Monarch, Matt Thompson’s intricate portrayal of the world of the Stag Beetle, an elusive creature with a 6 year life-cycle, took the amateur award on Thursday night.
Peter Williamson, who, along with other family members, sponsored Under Open Skies in memory of his father, Herefordshire amateur wildlife filmmaker and Wyevale founder, Harry Williamson, described the ceremony as a triumphant finish to what has become Europe’s largest rural film festival. “It is also a fitting tribute to my father who so loved the natural history of the Herefordshire,” said Peter afterwards.
Presenting the professional award on Saturday night BBC Hereford and Worcester’s Wincey Willis said the Festival had showcased an extraordinary range of talent. “Along with my fellow judges I know how hard the films we’re seeing tonight were to make. It’s been absolutely fantastic doing this”, she added. “It’s been a real privilege to be part of the award.”
Borderlines’ Executive Director Naomi Vera-Sanso announced that Borderlines had broken its box office record, despite the sunny spring. “Attendances at The Courtyard alone have topped the 10,000 mark, a 10% rise on last year, which just goes to show how popular the Festival has become.”
With final figures from venues like Ludlow Assembly Rooms and Flicks in the Sticks still to come in, it now looks certain that overall attendances for the Festival will pip last year’s total of 12,600.
And Naomi revealed that although audiences for Black Swan had exceeded a thousand, an all-time record for a single film, the choice for the most popular out of the 80 films screened during the 17 days of the Festival was the altogether more gentle My Afternoons with Margueritte, starring Gerard Depardieu as an illiterate handyman who embarks on an unlikely friendship with a bookish old lady.
Dates for Borderlines 2012, the Film Festival’s tenth anniversary are Friday 24 February to Sunday 11 March.
ENDS
Editorial notes
1. Borderlines has run for 17 days from Friday 25 March to Sunday 10 April 2011, 80 films and over 200 screenings and events. 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. Under Open Skies: The Borderlines Harry Williamson Prize is funded by Wyevale Nurseries.
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Further images are available if required, please contact Alison Chapman on 07969 393884.