Surrey Border bi-annual Spring Festival

Successful filmmaking over the last two years was celebrated at the April meeting of Surrey Border Film & Video Makers. In that time Club members had made a total of 78 films/videos!

The meeting was the first of what is intended to be a bi-annual event celebrating the best acting, directing and script writing over the two-year period. It represented a new and welcome development for the club, as in the past many awards were for technical merit with little acknowledgement of artistic merit.

The evening started with a composite video of extracts from 22 videos shortlisted from the 78. Rita Wheeler, the club script writer, then showed extracts from five videos considered for the acting award. This was followed by Terence Patric of Circle Eight commenting on extracts of videos considered for the directing award. The club then welcomed the well known television actor Philip Bird who commented on extracts from the five videos considered for the best acting award

After the interval, during which there was much speculation as to which videos were going to be the winners, the actual awards were made. The best script writing award went to David Longley’s group for its excellent film “Natalie”. The award for best directing went to “The Little Match Girl”, by Neil Cryer with the aid of his wife and grandchildren, and the acting award went to “Spare Some Change Please”, written and acted by Martin Harder.