Press Release
Real Life on the Black Mountains is back
Contact:
Bill Laws 07742 825813;
Naomi Vera-Sanso, 01547 540159;
Alison Chapman (images) 07969 393884
Date: 9th December 2007
Real Life on the Black Mountains, a film that recaptures the rhythms of the local hill farming community, is being re-released by Borderlines Film Festival. It is based on amateur movies made over 30 years by housekeeper Dorothy Howells with her Standard 8 camera.
Premiered at village halls across the borders during the Festival last year, Real Life on the Black Mountains was a surprise success at the Hay Festival this year. Hay Festival Director Peter Florence described the audience as "enraptured by the film."
Real Life features long-forgotten events in the hill farming calendar: sheep being washed in the Monnow stream, shepherds on horseback bringing the flocks down from the mountain, ponies driven through the streets of Hay to the sales, the annual Shepherds' Day when farmers gathered from all over the Black Mountains to sort out the strays, and, the highlight of the film, the regular bare backed rodeo competitions.
Interviews with film-maker Dorothy Howells and farmers who remember the old ways are interwoven with the original cine film into a charming and thought-provoking film by award winning film-maker Naomi Vera-Sanso
"Dorothy Howells had a natural gift for film-making and over three decades made a truly remarkable document of farming life in one of the most beautiful and isolated areas of the Welsh Marches," says Naomi.
Real Life will be screened again at the 2008 Borderlines Festival which opens across Herefordshire, Shropshire and Powys on March 28. Meanwhile copies of the film can be bought from Pembertons Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye (01497 820159) or direct from Borderlines Film Festival (01547 540159 or info@borderlinesfilmfestival.co.uk
Ends
Notes to editors.
- Borderlines runs from March 28th and to April 12th 2008.
- Press queries? Call Naomi 01547 540159 (info@borderlinesfilmfestival.co.uk) or Bill Laws 07742 825 8133. For additional images please contact Alison Chapman (07969 393884).
- Attached image is taken from Real Life cover. Other pictures available from Alison alisonc@borderlinesfilmfestival.co.uk
- www.borderlinesfilmfestival.org