Why we come to Borderlines Film Festival all the way from Bedfordshire!

Christine and Mark Renney have been crossing the country from East to West in early spring for a few years now. Borderlines Marketing Assistant Alison caught up with them at the Market Theatre in Ledbury in March and asked them what was behind this migratory impulse. This is the response that they have sent us.

We first came across the Borderlines Film Festival when we made arrangements to visit family in Eardisley and wanted to see what was around so that we could combine this with other areas of interest.

Mark and I are avid film fans, and are members at Cambridge Picturehouse, and often travel to the National Media Museum in Bradford and stay over for a few nights to catch special things on there or go to talks at the University of Warwick by film historians followed by a film of particular interest to them.

You can imagine how delighted we were to visit not only a beautiful part of the country but an area with a thriving interest in films for all tastes and ages.  We decided to dip our toe in the water the first year of our visit as we only had a couple of days available in which to see films - that was in 2011.  From this we decided to take a week's holiday in 2012 in order to see as many films as possible in between other things we wanted to do. We enjoyed the opportunities of visiting villages that we would probably never have gone to in order to see films in local village or school halls.  The camaraderie of the audience members, who clearly support Flicks in the Sticks (fabulous idea by the way) regularly, is a delight and we got talking to some very interesting and interested people.

Francine Stock at Lady Emily Hall, Tarrington © Michelle Gerrard

We visited again for a week this year, initially booking the first week of the festival as holiday only to find that we had to cancel this and rebook for the last of the two weeks. What was so appealing to us was that both weeks had many films of interest and so we easily found, having already ticked the films of the first week to see, numerous films in the second week to watch - especially the Chilean trilogy.

It is our intention to come again in 2014 if the event is still running, which we are sure it will be as it is organised by people who really love and appreciate the fine works of so many film makers, old and new.

Disused petrol station at Whitney-on-Way © Mark Renney

Railings in Hay-on-Wye © Mark Renney

Festival showers and a bicycle competition

Somewhere towards the middle of Borderlines 2013 I couldn't help noticing that all three films I'd seen in a row featured a significant shower. As I'm sure, I've remarked before, for me, the way coincidence (sometimes deliberate programming, but more often sheer coincidence ) throws movies together in the most unexpected, often trivial ways is one of the deepest pleasures of film festivals.

First of all there was the potential Italian father-in-law in Woody Allen's To Rome With Love. Given the glorious free rein of his shower room, Giancarlo, played by real life tenor Fabio Armiliato, has a operatic voice to die for.

Outside that comfort zone, nerves get the better of him so the character played by Allen, an outré opera impresario, carries through the delightfully silly 'avant-garde' notion of casting him in Pagliacci, boxed in the armour of a built-in shower cubicle.

Quite a contrast in tone the next day, as I watched the grim Post Mortem and noted that the key event, a brutal government raid on the home of his girlfriend Nancy, takes place as mortuary assistant Mario showers. It's an attack that leaves the house wrecked and charred but Mario seems as clueless and cut-off from the political mayhem surrounding him in Pinochet's Chile as he is oblivious in his shower cubicle to the noisy and violent upheaval taking place just across the street.

Day three and the shower scene to end all shower scenes, Psycho of course. Hitchcock catches us and his main character unawares, unwinding after a day of flight, deep anxiety and moral tension under the soothing rays of a penetrating warm shower.

After that, I couldn't help seeing showers everywhere from the spectacular blood waterfalls that accompanied every initiation of a new vampire in Neil Jordan's Byzantium to Philip Seymour Hoffman as second violinist Robert in A Late Quartet attempting to hose off a raunchy infidelity and weeping in the shower at the enormity of the marital and professional betrayal he has just committed.

It got to the stage that I could count on the fingers of one hand the films that didn't feature a significant shower scene. Or any shower scene at all.

In the spirit of a different coincidence - bicycles - you might like to have a go at our Bicycle Thieves competition. Identify the titles of the four films we showed at Borderlines 2013 that prominently featured bicycles.

Email your answers by midnight, tomorrow Friday 22 March for a chance to win a copy of the Bicycle Thieves DVD, courtesy of our long-term sponsor, MovieMail.