Ambitious programme for annual Montrose film festival
Films about the politics of rewilding, the joy of open-air swimming and the consequences of overfishing are all part of a major environmental festival taking place in Montrose in September.
The fourth annual LandxSea festival, which takes place from Friday, September 11 - Sunday, September 13 will feature films from Scotland, Greenland, Iraq, Croatia, Indonesia and the US and includes one European premiere, two UK premieres and eight Scottish premieres.
Held in Montrose Playhouse, the festival will also include seaweed tasting, knot tying and an annual dook, when film makers from around the world plunge into the icy waters of Montrose Bay.
Rachel Caplan, festival director, said: “When I talk to people, they are sometimes surprised that a major international film festival is taking place in a small town in Angus. But Montrose is right at the epicentre of all these conversations about climate, energy and agriculture.
“It’s home to the biggest offshore wind farm in Europe. It’s where the land meets the sea.”
Ms Caplan, originally from Edinburgh and previously director of the San Francisco Green Film Festival, continued: “This year’s programme is very emotionally charged. It’s going to make you laugh. It’s going to make you cry. And it’s going to remind you that the world is a wonderful place.
“Every year, the LandxSea programme seems to find its own shape. This year, one phrase kept returning: Hold Fast. This year’s programme tells the stories of people tightly bound to land and sea: fishermen, farmers, artists, voices young and old, and unexpected protectors.”
The opening night film is ‘Derek vs Derek’, a light-hearted documentary about a culture clash between two farmers who have very different approaches to agriculture.
Derek Banbury runs an intensive dairy farm in Devon while his neighbour Derek Gow has taken a different path, transforming his fields into a haven for beavers, wild boar and other native species. What begins as a feud, transforms into a revealing portrait of countryside under pressure. ‘Expressing the Earth’, showing on September 12, is the debut feature film from Scottish director Glenda Rome. The film takes a lyrical journey into geopolitics, combining the work geologist James Hutton with the insight of writer, philosopher and poet Kenneth White. The film coincides with the 300th anniversary of Hutton’s discoveries.
Among the international features are ‘Materia Prima’, which examines the global race for lithium and the social and environmental impact on the people of the Bolivian Andes; and ‘Hope is a Word’, a Norwegian Nigerian film, looking at oil drilling in the Niger Delta. David Paton, chairperson, architect and founder of the Montrose Playhouse said: “It’s amazing to have all these international film makers coming to a town the size of Montrose. The festival brings people together and starts conversations and that’s really important.” Kate Munro, co-ordinator of Montrose-based Angus Climate Hub said: “Something like the LandxSea film festival is the perfect place to have these conversations and I think they are really needed - we need more people to understand the climate reality.”
Full details about the weekend’s programme can be found at www.landxsea.org.