Learning About Place Through Film: Nancy Barrett and Alistair Macdonald

Join us for a friendly Q&A conversation with filmmaker Alistair Innes Macdonald and Nancy Barrett (Brigantia Creative)

Learning About Place Through Film: Behind the Scenes Filmmaking Q&A (with Nancy Barret and Alistair I Macdonald)

Join us for an evening discussion with filmmaker Alistair I Macdonald and Nancy Barrett (Brigantia Creative) on how film can help us learn about place.

Drawing on films from their own practice, currently featured in the Stories in Motion exhibition, Alistair and Nancy will reflect on the stories behind their work and the ways their approaches connect filmmaking, cultural development and community engagement.

This discussion will explore how film can capture lived experience, bring local heritage into view, and deepen our understanding of the places we live. It will consider film not only as a creative and documentary medium, but also as a tool for listening, storytelling and strengthening connections between people and place.

The session will include audience questions and discussion.

Alistair I Macdonald (Filmmaker)

Hailing from Manchester, Alistair I Macdonald first moved to the better side of the Pennines almost forty years ago and has lived in the Colne Valley for the last twenty seven.

A self taught filmmaker with a background in academia, social care and the legal profession, Alistair founded Curlew Films thirteen years ago. Since then, he has managed a successful artistic and commercial filmmaking practice working across Britain and Europe. Much of his time has been spent working with local organisations to help people and communities tell their stories and celebrate their work and play, their lives and heritage. Nosy by nature, filmmaking has enabled him to investigate how people shape and are shaped by where they live. His films have been screened across the world but, more satisfyingly, also in Dewsbury, Huddersfield and Marsden. He has also created large scale video work for musical performances at Dewsbury Minster and the Lawrence Batley Theatre. Playing under the name "Bobus", he is also an electronic music producer and a part of the blossoming experimental electronic music scene in the Colne Valley.

www.curlewfilms.com

www.bobuselectro.uk

Nancy Barrett – Brigantia Creative

Nancy is Chief Executive of Brigantia Creative, an arts, cultural development and learning charity with social purpose at its heart. Since 2014 Nancy has been the Creative Director of Creative Scene, the Arts Council England Creative People and Places project in Kirklees, finding the parts the arts don’t currently reach, and working with our communities to create, commission and produce fantastic arts and culture with meaning. This has seen the thousands of people get involved and hundreds of events and activities across Kirklees neighbourhoods - from film screenings in disused textile mills, touring family theatre in community centres, opera devised and performed with a cast of local talent, to fantastic festivals and fiery outdoor arts events in parks and public spaces.

Prior to this Nancy worked for 10 years at Arts Council England as Director- Greater Manchester for the Creative Partnerships programme, as Principal Officer Arts, Culture & Events at Trafford Council, and as Community Artists and Director for Orsdall Community Arts, Salford. She holds an MA in European Cultural Policy and Planning, has presented papers at UNESCO's World Culture & Education Conference, Lisbon, and Barcelona Creative Cities Conference, and served as Head of the Anna Lindh Foundation UK network bringing together civil society organisations for intercultural dialogue and working across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

www.creativescene.org.uk

www.wearebrigantia.org.uk