Women in Film: An audience with Elizabeth-Jane Baldry

“Elizabeth-Jane’s films are refreshing and imaginative – a storyteller from the green heart of Devon”

Alan Lee, Academy award winning conceptual designer, Lord of the Rings.

Elizabeth-Jane Baldry’s work in film takes place across multiple disciplines. She is founder of the Chagford Filmmaking Group, a non-profit voluntary organization dedicated to preserving the nation’s folklore and fairy tale heritage through films of British fairy tales. The group has received funding awards from the EU and the UK Film Council for its work and in 2014, Elizabeth-Jane was selected by the Directors Guild of Great Britain for their talent development scheme.

Uniquely, however, she is also the only silent movie harpist in the world, performing live accompaniment to cinema screenings of early film. Her compositions have been used by ITV, the BBC and by Irish, Japanese, Danish and Canadian film, radio and television. She has performed to sold-out audiences in the US, in Italy and in France.

Tonight, Elizabeth will be talking about her work in film and music and the passion for storytelling – and in particular folk and fairy tales – that motivates her work combining the two art-forms. Elizabeth will also be showing her film 'The Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heugh'.

The Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heugh (40mins)

A Northumbrian Fairytale

“I have seen Nosferatu many times; I’ve even lectured on it. But this is the finest accompaniment I’ve ever heard…absolutely extraordinary.”

Professor Emeritus Christopher McCullough, University of Exeter.

Biography

Elizabeth-Jane Baldry studied at Exeter University and the Royal College of Music and now gives around eighty performances a year from recitals in historic houses or on specialist arts cruises to weddings and funerals.

Her unique research into Victorian Fairy Harp Music has led to a CD with worldwide distribution; radio and TV broadcasts; a West End stage show with actor Simon Callow for which she also wrote the songs; appearances at the Royal Academy of Art exhibition of Victorian Fairy Paintings and at Prince Charles’s unveiling of the restored Elfin Oak Tree in Kensington Gardens; involvement in the major French exhibition Dragons, Elfes et Fées; and an appearance in the award-winning Canadian television documentary The Fairy Faith.

She lives in a granite cottage full of books and harps in the vibrant Dartmoor village of Chagford and the kettle is always on for friends.

Links

http://elizabethjanebaldry.com/

http://www.fairytalefilms.co.uk/

https://womeninfilm.org/