A Weekend in the Country: The Broughton Film Festival

This is My Land

2009-10-22T03:46:00.000-07:00

(film still from This is My Land, Ben Rivers)

Although the festival is not explicitly about climate change, it is the underlying theme to the whole festival. It has been curated in such a way as to provide a platform to explore current issues surrounding climate change, rural isolation and what it means to live and work in the countryside in 2009.

The festival has been designed to celebrate our countryside and explore serious issues such as climate change in a approachable and interesting way. All aspects of the festival have been considered to highlight particular areas of interest such as, local conservationist, Bill Shaw's introduction to the Scottish section of the festival with a talk about his time on the island of St Kilda and the changes he has been monitoring there. To Ben Rivers film This is My Land which explores a solitary man living self-sufficiently off the land, and documents his way of life that quietly, but resolutely, refuses to submit to the demands of conventional living. Watch a short clip of the film here (please note it contains some mild swearing)

This is My Land

Our main aim for the festival is for the films and talks to act as a catalyst for an informal discussion between a diverse group of people from conservationists, film makers, local farmers and members of the community about their personal experience of climate change and what it's like for them to live and work in the countryside.

Focus Group

2009-10-12T03:44:00.000-07:00

The next focus group meeting will be held on Friday November 13th, 5.30pm at the Victory Hall. This will be to co-ordinate our distribution plan for the programme and to watch a selection of films so that the focus group members know exactly what will be shown and can go forth and tell everyone what a wonderful weekend it will be! The festival volunteers will also be coming so they can get a feel for what will be happening over the weekend. Please feel free to bring up any questions or issues you may have so we can discuss them at the meeting.

Look forward to seeing you.

Heard it through the grape-vine

2009-10-12T03:21:00.000-07:00

It's really important that we start building interest in the festival now so that as many people as possible put the date in their diaries. That's why we've printed some flyers to promote the festival. These are just the pre-festival flyers, not the final ones which will be more like a booklet and will include a programme of the weekend's activities. We've been delivering the flyers to local businesses and tourist information centres. We also promoted the festival at Jane Rousseau's 'Best of The Mountain Film Festival' night which was really well attended.

It really feels like there is a growing 'buzz' around the Victory Hall with lots of things going on from Jane's film nights, to the Film Club events, the craft workshops in the summer and the Autumn adult classes starting up again. We also hope to contribute to this buzz and fill the hall with lots of people, great films and mulled wine in December so please spread the word!

An Afternoon with Mr Palmer

2009-10-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

Recently I've spent some time with Dick Palmer; the main contact for the Broughton Community Apple Press. I interviewed him for the short film I'm currently working on which will be shown in the lobby of the Victory Hall throughout the festival.

Taking to Dick, I hadn't quite realised the network of people in the area and around the country who are involved in sustaining our orchards and native fruit trees. There seems to be a real interest in this which is linked to a number of current social issues; sustaining local heritage, the growing interest in where our food comes from and the idea of 'growing your own'.

Dick showed me around his orchard at the bottom of Foxfield road. He has lots of young trees in his wonderful garden which stretches down the old railway track. Each tree has a metal tag with the variety engraved into it:

I made a mistake of asking 'when you you pick the apples?' to which Dick answered 'oh no, you don't pick apples you shake 'em off'. However if an apple is being a bit stubborn you can give it a helping hand with the special stick Dick made and with a jab and twist the apples come away easily.

I haven't seen the press yet as it's all tucked away until the end on the month when the apples will be ready. However Dick did show me the newest piece of kit that can be hired out with the press. These orchard ladders are a thing of beauty - looking a little like a modern bridge and so light you can carry them with one hand, the design of them is just perfect for 'shaking the apples'

So my next meeting with Dick is next week when we'll hopefully be harvesting and getting ready to press. It's a real delight to talk to someone who knows so much about an ancient process, and thanks to these organisations many more people are finding out about British orchards.

Modern Life

2009-07-23T03:33:00.000-07:00

Whilst working on a project in Leeds last month, I got the chance to catch up on some cinema- going at Bradford's National Media Museum. One of the films that stood out as having lots of parallels with Broughton, Woodland and the Duddon Valley was Raymond Depardon's Modern Life. Here's what the London Film Festival had to say about it:

"One of the finest films in Cannes this year came from photographer and film-maker Raymond Depardon, he of the unparalleled reputation as chronicler of French rural life. In Modern Life, he returns to the Haut-Garonne region and to the subjects of his earlier Profils Paysans films: l’approche and le quotidien. The octogenarian Privat brothers are struggling with age and declining health, and with the arrival of an outsider into the family fold; another elderly couple sees their dairy herd dwindle to just one cow; a middle aged man resents his responsibility for the family farm; and an enthusiastic young woman finds herself faced with insurmountable obstacles in her ambition to be a smallholder."

"Depardon approaches all of them with empathy, and the relationships he has forged over many years are clearly invaluable and integral to the film. For the most part, these are not people who find it easy to talk about themselves. Even the film-maker’s familiarity and understanding cannot completely remove their discomfort, and the tacit recognition of this speaks volumes. If Depardon’s portraits of the paysans are affectionate and astute, so too is his approach to the landscape, filmed in wide shots to capture its remote beauty. Day turns to night, people grow old, the world changes around them: ineffable facts, but presented here in uniquely moving style." Sandra Hebron

Meeting with The Film Club Committee

2009-07-23T03:03:00.000-07:00

We had a very encouraging meeting with the Broughton Film Club Committee yesterday afternoon at the Square cafe. Members Jane, Richard, Paul, Malcolm and David have offered their full support for the festival and are all keen to get on board with the development over these coming months.

It was a real pleasure to talk to people who volunteer their time to a community project like the Film Club. Since they have been running the club for over four years now, they are able to offer us lots of advice on areas such as pricing tickets, audience development and identifying groups of people they'd like to encourage to come along to the festival who don't normally attend film club events.

After the meeting Richard dropped off a film called 'Behind The Scenes; Farmers' Diaries From England's Lake District', which we'll be watching this week and are hoping to include in the programme.

The committee have kindly given permission for us to use the DVD projector and screen for our focus groups in August, September and October so we can start to get a feel of which films will work best in the hall.

We both left the meeting feeling very excited with lots of new ideas on how we can engage with a wider audience and hopefully get a full house during the festival!

We Need A Farmer

2009-06-30T03:55:00.000-07:00

We are very keen to invite members of the community to choose one of the films that will be shown at the festival and devise a short introduction to it. The film which you will introduce will be relevant to your work or interests.

At the moment we are looking for a farmer who would like to watch a film about farming in North West France. It would be very interesting for a local farmer to see what the similarities and difference are between their way of life and your own.

We will work with you to write an introduction which we will then film you reading or someone else reading if you would prefer. Your short introductory film will then be shown before the main film. This is an important part of the festival as we would like to make all the films shown relevant to our community.

If you are interested please contact Sam or Glenn at bricarts@googlemail.com

Community Focus Group for Film Selection

2009-06-26T05:02:00.000-07:00

We have begun the initial selection process for choosing the films to screen at the festival. These shortlisted films will soon be shown to a focus group made up of various members of the community in order for us to hear their thoughts and feedback before we finalise the selection. If you would like to become a member of the focus group please contact us using the details on the right hand side - we welcome all thoughts and ideas about the festival.

The three main criteria which we have used to select the films are as follows:

1. The film explores the rural landscape of Britain which makes us look at it in a thoughtful way.

2. If the film is from another country, it will make a distinct comparison with the British landscape in order for us to look at own landscape in a new way.

3. The film is suitable for an audience from a wide section of the community.

We these criteria in mind below you can see some of the films the next focus group will be discussing:

Sleep Furiously by Gideon Koppel

Winner of the Environment is the Quality of Life Prize at the 2008 Locarno International Film Festival.

This delicate film by Gideon Koppel is a love-letter to Trefeurig, the Welsh farming community in Ceredigion where he grew up, and where his parents found refuge from Nazi Germany during the second world war. It is a rural society at one with a landscape of stunning beauty, but in fact in crisis. Koppel's film takes as its starting point the closure of the local school, a definitive, calamitous loss for a place where shops and bus services have already vanished. The movie pays tribute to the grit of a people who may yet revive their economy, but it acknowledges a darker possibility, for which the sentimental note of an "elegy" is not appropriate. Slowly, but surely, Trefeurig appears to be dying, and Koppel's camera captures the consequent ripples of loss and regret.

Portrait of Ga by Margaret Tait

'My mother lives in the windy Orkney Isles. It's certainly a wonderful place to be brought up in' is the opening to this classic short film. It's a beautiful portrait of the filmmakers elderly mother but also a portrait of her beloved Orkney Islands in the 1950's. Margaret once said of her films, with characteristic modesty, that they are born of 'of sheer wonder and astonishment at how much can be seen in any place that you choose...if you really look'.

This film has been selected to show in the Scottish Landscape section of the festival when local conservationist Bill Shaw will deliver a talk about his summer on St Kilda which will introduce the magnificent film, The Edge of The World (see below).

The Edge of the World by Michael Powell

Powell based his script on the true story of the evacuation of thirty-six people from St. Kilda, an island ten miles off the west coast of Scotland, on 29 August 1930. The film was made over four months during the summer of 1936 on the island of Foula, in the Shetland Isles. Permission was denied to film on St. Kilda, which is in the Hebrides, and where they actually speak Gaelic, while on Foula they speak Norse. Powell was adamant that local people be in the film, and that it all be shot on location (which, except for some pick-up shots back at the studio, turned out to be the case).

Researching for the film: The Community Apple Press

2009-06-16T06:40:00.001-07:00

As part of the film festival Samantha Allan has been commissioned to make a new film/installation for the entrance of the Victory Hall for the duration of the festival. Below she describes her initial thoughts:

"I want the piece to be a celebration of the village of Broughton-in-Furness. After moving to the area five years ago from London the main thing that has struck me is a sense of community organisation and how events and news travels through well trodden networks such as the post office window, the notice boards and the local newsletter.

I love the simple idea that a group can get together to do something and let people know and know other people will see it. It's a freedom that is missing from were I used to live. It's a cliche to say but sometimes it feels as if it's a hundred years ago here and I don't mean that in any derogatory way. It's a sense that there is space here to do things. Practical spaces like a large village hall for community events, another smaller hall, fields, old barns. It feels there is a strong, sustainable community here.

I have pinpointed one event in particular to become the focus of my new work. The Broughton Community Apple Press Association was set up in 2005 by a group of residents after they were sick of seeing apples and other fruit being wasted because n0-one had the facility to press them. So now after fundraising and setting up the association this will be the fourth year that the press is taken to the small villages and hamlets of the area so people can come and bring their fruit to be pressed. It's inspiring to see new traditions being set up in the face of the demise of many rural communities. And it will make a strong focus for my film.

I am working with Dick Palmer who is the chairman of the association and also SLOG (South Lakes Orchard Group) who have a fantastic knowledge of heritage fruits which are native to, or are commonly grown in, this area."

Bradley’s Beauty
Brownlee’s Russet
Caíanska Posna
Duke of Devonshire
Egremont Russet
Gladstone
Scotch Bridget
Keswick Codlin
Lady’s Finger of Lancaster/Lancashire
Laxton Superb
Manx Codlin
Holstein
Old Pearmain
Queen
Rankthorne
Thomas Rivers
Taylor’s Favourite
Winter Banana
Yellow Ingestrie