Cannes comes to Hereford

Hereford’s Odeon cinema will be home to the county’s very own version of the Cannes festival this month as children from ten schools prepare to celebrate their successful movie making skills red-carpet style.

250 nine and ten year olds from Herefordshire primary schools have been making short films following training received from professional filmmaker Rick Goldsmith of Catcher Media and Herefordshire Council’s  school improvement service.

This is the fifth year these highly successful projects have been run and this year’s project has the heading Take 5: Poetic License.  As the title implies, all the films have a poetic base.  Beyond that the children have interpreted the theme as they wish and topics tackled include Halloween, World War II, mythical creatures, a Bollywood style retelling of a Hindu myth, the environment and much more.

The children and their teachers will be able to see the final version of their film on the big silver screen at a spectacular red-carpet event on Friday September 25th.  The dress code for the event is ‘Cannes’ and some children will be arriving in limos. After the premier event, DVDs of all nine films will be sent to all Herefordshire primary schools and the clips will be available on SchoolsTube (www.schoolstube.com) – just search for Take5.

Primary schools’ ICT Adviser for Herefordshire Council, Mark Sanderson said: “This is always a most enjoyable project for all involved. The children and the teachers learn a huge amount about this important means of communication which in turn impacts on standards in literacy.

“We have again worked closely with Rick and Julia Goldsmith of Hereford based Catcher Media: their experience in the field is invaluable to schools.”

Sally McCamley, head teacher at Stoke Prior Primary School said: The whole project has been incredibly worthwhile.  The children have really enjoyed being in control of the filmmaking equipment and having Rick has really made them consider how to make each shot more interesting.”

*Primary schools selected to take part in the project:
Ashfield Park
Stoke Prior
Clifford
Much Marcle CE
St Peter’s, Bromyard
Mordiford CE
Cradley CE
Pembridge CE
Ledbury
Almeley