“Most ambitious” Berwick Festival draws to a close
Featuring screenings of 50 films and moving image works including 20 premieres, this year’s Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival was the “most ambitious” to date, according to Festival director Melanie Iredale.
Using the historic town of Berwick-upon-Tweed as a set, the programme, which ended last Sunday, featured a selection of new films and contemporary moving image art installations, each projected in, or on to, a range of unique venues and heritage locations around the town. The Festival opened up rarely accessed parts of Berwick’s Elizabethan heritage including the town’s ice houses and the old prison cells in the tower of the Town Hall.
this year the programme focussed on the relationship between the moving image and the still image, with the Festival offering a platform to artists who work across film and photography, such as Shirin Neshat, and to artists inspired by photographic techniques, such as Andrew Kötting.
17 countries were represented across 9 venues. The Festival also hosted 7 outdoor screenings.
“We’ve been overwhelmed with the feedback we’ve had from audiences on the programme, and from our artists on the welcome they’ve had here in Berwick,” said Iredale.
“It really was a huge success, and I want to thank all of the funders and sponsors for supporting it, and my staff and volunteers for making it happen. It was certainly our most ambitious festival to date, and we’re planning for the next one already!”
Filmmaker and critic Mark Cousins also lauded praise on the Festival, describing it as “beautifully curated” and a “feast of innovative film”.
The Festival returns at the same time next year with the theme of North by Northeast. The Festival will explore the North East's historical, industrial and cultural links with Northern Europe, and the North Sea that connects the region.
As part of this, the Festival today announced their partnership with Berwick Visual Arts on a residency early next year, which will result in a new commission for the 2013 Festival.
The residency offers the opportunity for a moving image artist to spend up to 6 months in Berwick-upon-Tweed, with a wealth of unique heritage locations available to the artist to site their resulting work. The funding available for the residency is up to £12,000, with additional exhibition costs covered by the Festival.