Its Great Up North
12 October 2009
Salford Film Festival prides itself on its regional focus, on being a festival with a strong northern accent. This year, we are delighted to welcome as a guest programmer Radio DJ, Author, cultural critic and proud Northerner Stuart Maconie, who will be exploring the issue of Northern Identity in a series of specially-selected screenings. Stuart has written for Q, Word Magazine, Elle, The Times, The Guardian, the Evening Standard, the Daily Express, Select, Mojo, Country Walking, Deluxe and was an assistant editor for the NME. He is also the author of Cider With Roadies, Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North, and Adventures on the High Teas: In Search of Middle England. Stuart has selected a number of films which he feels illustrate or challenge the widely-held notions and oft-repeated myths of Northernness. Stuart will be here in person to introduce the programme, and will also chair a discussion following the screening of Made in Sheffield, on the issues raised by the programme as a whole.
“I have chosen films that I think illustrate the strength and diversity, passion and joy of the North, its landscapes and its people. The 1939 William Wyler version of Wuthering Heights is unusual in these days of crinoline and cultivated hedgerow period pieces in that it revels in the darkly brooding nature of both Heathcliff and the bleak Pennine hills that he stalks. The romance of Gregory’s Girl is played out against the roundabouts and precincts of Cumbernauld New Town but manages to make this urban scene luminous with possibilities. And Sunday’s documentaries show how the love of music burns fiercely in the foundry city of Sheffield and the former cotton and coal town of Wigan. Different beats – the clank of industrial electronica and funk, the beating, skipping rhythms of Northern Soul – but the passion is the same.” – Stuart Maconie.
