Borderlines Film Festival: your favourite film

The films you the audience voted for turned out to be very different from those that proved popular at the box office.

While over 1,000 people came to see An Education, followed by large audience figures for Up in the Air and Nowhere Boy, when it came to our online poll it was two Japanese films that came out on top.

Departures, with its fresh take on life and death through the eyes of a young ceremonial corpse-washer,  won a resounding 18% of the vote with the understated meditation on family life, Still Walking, second with 13%.

Other films you rated highly were Nowhere Boy, The Limits of Control, Welcome, Tulpan, The Hurt Locker and Katalin Varga. All this indicates that there's a core audience at Borderlines that favours some of the more unusual and intriguing films on offer at the festival.

Rounding up/looking forward

All over for another year. Dates for Borderlines 2011: Friday 25 March to Sunday 10 April

Thanks to everyone who came to one of our 200 plus screenings for your support and we hope you enjoyed the film festival as much as we did!

Don't forget you have a week to vote for your favourite film on our online poll.

If you didn't get a chance to fill in one of our questionnaires you can still do this online.

A special thank-you to all projectionists and technicians without whom nothing would have appeared on the big screen, also to our volunteers including all of the dedicated Flicks in the Sticks promoters who bring cinema to all corners of the Marches the year round.

And just to bring everything full circle, here's the moment before the first screening of the Festival, Nowhere Boy in the Studio at The Courtyard in Hereford at 2pm on Friday 26 February.



And a snapshot from the auditorium just before the penultimate film, The Hurt Locker, 6.30pm on Sunday 14  March in the Main House, again at The Courtyard.

I could've been a Beatle....

An Education and Nowhere Boy are both set in the dark days of the late 50s and early 60s. Remarkably both films were in colour, which is not how I remember the time. My hometown was grey, I was grey, even the dog was grey. This was partly as a result of post war economics and the transfer of vast sums of money to our gallant allies the USA, who supported us financially during the war, but then wanted all the cash back. But the dullness of the time was also because our parent's generation had had rather too much excitement over the previous twenty years and were happy to settle for a little light boredom in exchange for a lack of bombs.

I can't blame them (though I did at the time) but I do remember the stultifying dreariness and the yearning for glamour and excitement. And jazz clubs. Because jazz was cool and sophisticated and pop had come over all Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde and was safely in the clutches of Tin Pan Alley and the BBC Home Service. An Education portrayed this desperation for escape beautifully, with some fabulous performances, although Peter Sarsgaard was surely miscast.

Nowhere Boy begins slightly earlier, when there was still a rough edge to Rock and Roll and even Elvis had not yet turned into a pudgy warbler of dreary ballads. John Lennon's first performance was as leader of a skiffle group. The shambolic recruitment of the band took me back to a day when, as a shy 15 year old I stood at the back of my local youth club. There was to be a festival of youth at the Civic Hall. A skiffle group was to be formed and could anyone play the guitar? To my mounting horror, I raised my hand with a show of bravado. I was in. My only niggling doubt was that I was neither able to play, nor did I own a guitar. But my Uncle Jack did. I cycled over. "Could I borrow your guitar and can you teach me to play it by Saturday?" And somehow he did, or at least well enough for us to perform in front of an audience of several hundred. And for that one evening I was overwhelmed by the glamour of show biz.

So as I watched Nowhere Boy, observing that 'The Quarry Men's' efforts were little better than those of the glorious but ephemeral Saint Anne's Youth Club Skiffle Group, I enjoyed for a brief moment the illusion that 'I could've been a Beatle.........'

Nowhere Boy

It's a real nowhere film. The director was well served by her cast, but they were ill served by their director. This is a sorry, dull piece of film making, some of it on a par with the worst excesses of the BBC period films department, only occasionally leavened by great performances. If the editing 'was just painful' and there really were 'endless possibilities' then Taylor-Wood picked the wrong ones. Conceptual artist she may well be, but film maker she is not. Well, not yet. But would you give her another chance?

Venue spotlight: Wem Town Hall

Where better to spend a film festival opening night than at a performance of silent cinema classic, Man with a Movie Camera, with introduction and piano accompaniment by perennial Borderlines favourite, Paul Shallcross. Made by pioneer soviet film-maker and poet Dziga Vertov (real name: Denis Kaufman 'Dziga' from the cranking noise the camera makes) it's an exuberant and stimulating city symphony, full of tricks and surprises.

And the event, which also features the Buster Keaton short Neighbors, takes place at a brand-new venue, not just for Borderlines. Wem Town Hall, an exciting multi-use centre for the North Shropshire market town is due to launch officially in two weeks.


Gutted by fire in 1994, the town hall gradually fell into disuse until community groups took up its cause: 'Hall or Nothing'. The revamped centre with its fine foyer bar/cafe is the result. The festival programme at Wem is music-themed, from John Lennon's earliest strummings in Nowhere Boy to world cinema super-star, Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love, to the mind-blowing accordion duels of The Wind Journeys. And as you sit back and drink in the surroundings, remember, this could all have been a carpet warehouse.

Tickets are £4 or a subscription for all four films for £12 (£6 saving!) when bought at the same time.
Box Office: 01939 237075
All films play also at The Courtyard, Hereford.

P.S. It has been drawn to my attention that there are stories about the Town Hall having been haunted! An added dimension to the evening's entertainment. Take a look at this picture and be very afraid!

Borderlines Film Festival website is now live!

Full programme details and online booking (for The Courtyard Hereford tickets only) now operational.

The Courtyard Box Office is now open for bookings. Check out their Festival Ticket offer, a discount of £1 per ticket when you book for 5 or more events in one transaction. Please note that the offer doesn't apply to online ticket purchases; you'll need to call the Box Office on 01432 340555 or go along in person.

Daytime screenings before 3pm are also discounted at £3 and these are excluded from the above offer. Friends of The Courtyard are entitled to a 10% discount.

Our latest venue, Wem Town Hall in North Shropshire, is also offering a special deal, all 4 films in their programme for £12 (£6 saving!) when bought at the same time. They're showing silent Soviet masterpiece Man with a Movie Camera and Buster Keaton's Neighbors with piano accompaniment by Paul Shallcross, the new biopic about John Lennon's formative years, Nowhere Boy, and two fabulous but very different music-themed films The Wind Journeys and Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love. Call 01939 237075 to book.

Arriving soon near you

Our flyer - giving the merest hint of what Borderlines 2010 will deliver...



The flyer can be downloaded from Issuu here