11 - 26 October 2013

A big thank you to all who supported the festival this year and helped to make it such a success.  After a short breather we shall be starting to plan for our eighteenth festival in October 2014 and selecting films for our open air film shows in August. 

Remember that our exhibition at Durlston Castle is on for a few more days until Friday 1 November.

In the meantime happy movie going.

On Friday 18 October Purbeck Short films played to a packed house in The Rex Cinema Wareham.  The winner of the Audience Choice Best Animation went to The Royal Oak by Sandra Salter and Benedict Newbery, a beautifully observed, watercolour, animated poem.  The other Audience award for Best Short Feature went to Driftwood, a tense film about overcoming domestic and external bullying through a single-minded commitment to a sporting goal.  This well-acted film by James Webber displayed excellent editing and a convincing narrative and was rewarded with the Judges’ Prize for Best Film.  A new prize, made possible by a generous anonymous donor went to Liam Harris for Boxcart, for best student film.  Congratulations go to all entrants since only 20 films were programmed from over 170 entries.

If you missed this event be sure to join us next year!

Saturday night saw packed houses in the Rex, the Lighthouse and Stoborough Village Hall.  This quirky venue was a sell-out and filled with the evocative strains of the musical score from Oscar winning movie Out Of Africa.

Chrissy Widmer from Stoborough who chose this film has visited Africa many times and her introduction to the film included an appeal for aid to the Maasai community.  The Osaaligi Charity in Kenya promotes projects for this nomadic tribe – funds raised have built a school to educate the community in health and agricultural development, provided clean water systems and introduced solar lights as well as sponsoring orphans.

Chrissy said "The Maasai Warriors are already helping themselves as they have created a group who tour England giving concerts of their traditional song and dance to raise awareness and funds for the Osaaligi Charity". 

Profits from the bar and ice cream sales raised from the screening of Out of Africa will be donated to this charity and the Purbeck Film Festival is proud to have supported Chrissy.

From the Mozart, lush music and cinematography of Out of Africa, the Rex Cinema was ablaze with pop, punk and rock and roll!  A large audience saw the rarely screened, but free, animated Beatle film Yellow Submarine followed by the energetic and extraordinary celebration of successful failure in the documentary Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure – Otway The Movie.  John Otway himself came to introduce the film and participated in a Q&A after the film.  A remarkable man with a sense of humour that could blast away any dark clouds – how can one man make such a success of failure?  Ask his fans – therein lies the answer.  Let’s hope he gets his BAFTA nomination!