Event Description
Britain’s biggest rural film festival, one of the six largest film festivals in the UK, is set to take place from 1 – 17 March with a record number of screenings and events, just short of 300 in total. Borderlines covers a large area of country with 23 venues across Herefordshire, Shropshire, Malvern and the Marches, from mixed-arts centres and art deco picture palaces to remote village halls.
Supported by the BFI, awarding funds from the National Lottery, the Elmley Foundation and Hereford City Council, Borderlines offers audiences the opportunity to watch some of the very best new releases, including Oscar and BAFTA nominated titles like All of Us Strangers and The Zone of Interest, American Fiction and Anatomy of a Fall (winner of the 2023 Palme d’Or at Cannes).
Among the 68 films showing at Borderlines are 29 previews, titles screening before their UK cinema release. New work by acclaimed directors within this category are: Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses set in Turkey’s rural Anatolia; the dream-like La Chimera from Italy’s Alice Rohrwacher, starring Josh O’Connor and Isabella Rossellini; Perfect Days, a Japanese language film by veteran German director Wim Wenders about the contemplative life of a Tokyo toilet cleaner; the enigmatic Monster from prolific Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda; and from the US, Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up, her fourth collaboration with Michelle Williams.
There are ten themes in the programme to help cinemagoers navigate the programme. Holocaust comprises three new films that offer a fresh angle on a subject that is hard to confront: the genocide that took place through the course of World War 2: Occupied City, One Life and The Zone Of Interest. Screenwriter Nick Drake will introduce One Life in Hereford while Nicholas Watson, son-in-law of Nicholas Winton, the subject of the film and celebrated as a member of the Kindertransport project, will present at Malvern with Q&As to follow.
Another highlight is a trio of Mexican film noirs from the 1950s, two of them, The Brute and The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz, directed by master of cinema, Luis Buñuel. The third, Victims of Sin stars the unbelievably supple Cuban rumbera star, Ninón Sevilla. These rare showings have been enabled through our collaboration with Film Noir UK.
Local filmmakers Lynda Myer-Bennett and Clive Myer will present their new feature The Mire Archive about a terminally ill archaeologist reconnecting with his family. Filmed in Hereford and Monmouth with the directors’ own family, screenings with an introduction and Q&A will take place at The Courtyard Hereford and Malvern Theatres.
Collaborating with members of the Ukrainian community, The Rural Media Charity will give the premiere of a film called Razom/Together, the culmination of a six-month project. Leominster-based Fetch Theatre will showcase their fabulous shadow puppetry work with local Ukrainians at the same event.
Meanwhile Oska Bright, the world’s leading disability film festival, bring short films from their Best of the Fest in Brighton on tour to Borderlines.
And there’s a special treat for cyclists, screenings of possibly the best documentary about cycling ever made, the Danish A Sunday in Hell from 1976, to be introduced by The Guardian cycling columnist William Fotheringham, who will be signing copies of his book.
Other guests will be Ali Catterall and Jane Giles, co-directors of the documentary Scala!!! about the wild times of the London repertory cinema that had its heyday in the 1980s, attracting and inspiring renowned filmmakers, writers, musicians and artists.
Also within the Cinema Subverts theme, is Celluloid Underground, a documentary by Ehsan Khoshbakht who, as a young man in Tehran, was involved in saving and arranging semi-secret screenings of films that had been banned or destroyed by the Iranian regime. His collaborator and editor Niyaz Saghari will introduce the film and answer questions afterwards.
Tickets and passes for the Festival are now sale from 10am on Friday 26 January through borderlinesfilmfestival.org and in person or by phone through The Courtyard Hereford (01432 340555)
Screenings in the Malvern Hills District will take place at Malvern Theatres and Regal Tenbury Wells.
FILM SCREENINGS
Previews – films showing prior to general release (confirmed to date):
ABOUT DRY GRASSES (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey/France/Germany/Sweden, 2023)
ÀMA GLORIA(dir. Marie Amachoukeli, France, 2023)
BANEL & ADAMA (dir. Ramata-Toulaye Sy, Senegal/France/Mali, 2023)
BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD BLACKBERRY(dir. Elene Naveriani, Switzerland/Georgia, 2023)
BYE BYE TIBERIAS (dir. Lina Soualem, France/Palestine/Belgium/Qatar, 2022)
CELLULOID UNDERGROUND (dir. Ehsan Khoshbakht, UK/Iran, 2023)
LA CHIMERA (dir. Alice Rohrwacher, Italy/France/Switzerland, 2023)
DISCO BOY (dir. Giacomo Abbruzzese, France/Italy/Belgium, 2023)
THE GOLDMAN CASE (dir. Cédric Kahn, France, 2023)
GOODBYE JULIA (dir. Mohamed Kordofani, Sudan/Egypt/Germany/France/Saudi Arabia/Sweden, 2023)
HOARD(dir. Luna Carmoon, UK, 2023)
IF ONLY I COULD HIBERNATE (dir. Zoljargal Purevdash, Mongolia/France/Switzerland/Qatar, 2023)
IN CAMERA (dir. Naqqash Khalid, UK, 2023)
IO CAPITANO (dir. Matteo Garrone, Italy/Belgium/France/Senegal, 2023)
MONSTER (dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan, 2023)
THE NEW BOY (dir. Warwick Thornton, Australia, 2023)
OMEN (dir. Baloji, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2024)
ORLANDO, MY POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY (dir. Paul B. Preciado, France, 2023)
ROBOT DREAMS (dir. Pablo Berger, Spain/France, 2023)
ROSALIE (dir. Stéphanie di Giusto, France, 2023)
SLOW (dir. Marija Kavtaradze ,Lithuania/Spain/Sweden, 2023)
SNOW LEOPARD (dir. Pema Tseden, China, 2023)
THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN (dir. Pat Collins, Ireland/UK, 2023)New Releases:(subject to confirmation)
ALL OF US STRANGERS(dir. Andrew Haigh, UK, 2023)
AMERICAN FICTION (dir. Cord Jefferson, US, 2023)
EVIL DOES NOT EXIST(dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Japan, 2023)
OCCUPIED CITY(dir. Steve McQueen, UK/Netherlands, 2023)
ONE LIFE (dir. James Hawes, UK, 2023)
PERFECT DAYS (dir. Wim Wenders, Japan/Germany, 2023)
THE PROMISED LAND (dir Nikolaj Arcel, Denmark/Germany/Sweden, 2023)
RED ISLAND (dir. Robin Campillo, France/Belgium/Madagascar, 2023)
SAMSARA (dir. Lois Patiño, Spain, 2023)
SCALA!!! (dir. Ali Catterall, Jane Giles, UK, 2023)
SHAYDA(dir. Noora Niasari, Australia, 2023)
SHOWING UP (dir Kelly Reichardt, US, 2023)
THE TASTE OF THINGS (dir. Trần Anh Hùng, France, 2023)
WICKED LITTLE LETTERS (dir. Thea Sharrock, UK, 2023)
THE ZONE OF INTEREST (dir. Jonathan Glazer, US/UK/Poland, 2023) Repertory Titles:
THE DUPES (dir. Tewfik Saleh, Egypt, 1972)
PICCADILLY(dir. E. A. Dumont, UK, 1929) – silent with pre-recorded score composed by Neil Brand
PRESSURE (dir. Horace Ové, UK, 1975)
TOKYO STORY(dir. Yasujirō Ozu, Japan, 1953)
Special Offer:
Borderlines is co-sponsored by Bar Limón
10% discount for all ticket holders eating at Bar Limón before a film just show your ticket
