‘Hinterlands’, a major new international rural film festival has been announced by the Great Place: Lakes and Dales (GPLD) programme.
Taking place for the first time from May 16-19 2019, Hinterlands is a collaboration with award-winning arts organisation Wild Rumpus. It will celebrate films set in and talking about the countryside, for rural and city dwellers curious to know what life is like away from the urban centres.
It will include a traditional film festival format alongside creative activities including performances and interactive, dramatic celebrations.
Screenings of classics and brand new titles will be held in and around Skipton using locations from the Plaza cinema to local woodland, heritage sites and unused spaces – as well as sites that previously featured as film locations.
There will also be director talks, workshops, immersive performances, short film competitions and a wide range of family programming designed to inspire audiences to rethink the countryside.
Future Hinterlands are planned to be held in a different town every year across the Lakes and Dales area, which stretches along the rural corridor from Grasmere to Skipton.
Artistic director for the festival, Geoff Bird, said: “Some of the most exciting and provocative films of recent years have taken the countryside as both their theme and their setting. The likes of Winter’s Bone, God’s Own Country and Dark River strip away cliches to examine life lived away from major urban centres. Hinterlands will set these new titles within a tradition of classics from The Railway Children through to Withnail and I to Kes, and hopefully inspire a greater understanding and appreciation of this fast-growing genre.”
Festival organiser Rowan Hoban, of Wild Rumpus, said: “It will celebrate films with green, natural spaces at their heart. We hope the festival will prove to be a catalyst for more year round film activity.”
Wild Rumpus is a social enterprise producing large scale outdoor family arts events. It is best known for the multi award-winning Just So Festival, an outdoor, family weekend event held annually in Cheshire.
GPLD, a project funded by Arts Council England and Heritage Lottery Fund looking at the ‘youth drain’ in the area and how heritage, arts and culture can help address it, announced the festival to more than 100 delegates from the creative, rural development and placemaking industries at its recent two-day Creative Connections event.
Lindsey Hebden, GPLD programme manager said: “We’re thrilled that Hinterlands will shine a light on our unique landscape through film and cinema, celebrating and interrogating the sense of place and developing new creative partnerships. We hope to engage young film-makers and creatives and look forward to seeing Hinterlands established as an annual fixture on the Lakes and Dales calendar.”
The news comes at a time when research from GPLD reveals that going to the cinema is the top cultural activity in the 16-34 year old age group after listening to music and reading.
Councillor Richard Foster, leader of Craven District Council, said: “I’m delighted that this new international film festival is to be held in Skipton next year. Craven and the Dales have provided very popular locations for film-makers over the last few years, which boosts the local economy and helps promote the area to the world. In fact, when one company shot a Netflix series in Craven last year, they estimated they had spent around £450,000 on accommodation, travel, food and other costs. I look forward to Craven hosting this major new festival, which will celebrate films created in and inspired by the Lakes and Dales.”
For further information about the festival, the programming and how to get involved sign up for more information at www.hinterlandsfestival.org.uk
