Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

We are starting with a film that should have lots of local interest - based around the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001, which affected 2000 farms across the country, and resulted in over 6 million cows and sheep being killed to stem it. Although this film is based on a farm in Devon, Cumbria was the worst affected, with nearly 900 cases.

The film started out in life as a stage play, written by Bea Roberts, which itself won many awards. The film has been made by the same people - director Paul Robinson, writer Bea Roberts and main actors, David Fielder and Nigel Hastings - so you can see it is a labour of love.

I can't give you many facts to go on as we are writing pre review stage, but the film makers, Finite Film and TV, say simply "A heart-warming story of friendship and survival set against the backdrop of the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak...tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a Devon farmer and the vet who is assigned to cull his precious herd". Hopefully we will have more to tell you before 10 September. What I can say is that we have been promised the director, Paul Robinson, to introduce and take a Q&A, and we are trying to get some local farmers and/or vets to come along to give their memories, so we should have a great start to the season.