“Diversity’s a tricky word.” – Peter Taylor talks BFMAF 2024

In anticipation of the 19th edition of the Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival (BFMAF), nestled within historic Berwick-upon-Tweed from (Today) March 7 to 10, 2024, we had the opportunity to engage with the festival’s Director, Peter Taylor. This year’s BFMAF, under Taylor’s guidance, presents an ambitious program that explores themes of liberation and hope through a diverse selection of 47 films across five carefully curated segments. The festival’s commitment to exploring the potency of cinematic art is evident in its innovative collaborations, such as the new visual identity created by Tom Joyes and Lucia Pham, and a special restoration of Ghassan Salhab’s “Phantom Beirut” for the opening night. With a lineup that includes UK premieres, global debuts, and interactive discussions, the festival promises a rich tapestry of storytelling and artistic exploration. That’s enough of me, let’s talk to Peter.

The 19th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival explores the ‘tension between hope and entangled ambivalences.’ Could you elaborate on how this theme guided your curatorial choices and what you hope audiences will take away from these narratives?

When making our first programming announcement of films by Basma al-Sharif, Emilia Beatriz, Nadia El Fani, Onyeka Igwe, Leida Laius, Ghassan Salhab and Heiny Srour, I was conscious that while spanning different decades, contexts and continents, all their films are defined by struggles for liberation. Whether longing and fighting for a free Palestine; a a secular, feminist, and equalitarian society in Oman, or writing a revolutionary play. As in life off screen, all of these specific and individual struggles grapple with generations of grief and loss. I think the ambivalences and entanglements are disciplines of hope.

It’s impossible to separate hope from difficulty. To nourish hope, and fight through difficulty, we need all the tenderness, ingenuity and humour that depending upon one another can provide. In working on the Festival with my colleagues over the last nine or ten years now, we’re most inspired by filmmakers that don’t shy away from these complications. We hope that experiencing these films together at the Festival will be deeply pleasurable. Even maybe the disappointments!

With premieres from over thirty countries, BFMAF has a strong international presence. How do you balance global and local perspectives? Does Berwick as a place influence your selections?

There’s actually films from around 30-40 countries in the programme this year! Apologies for not knowing the exact number off the top of my head I keep losing track every time I try to count! When I took up the job as Festival Director in 2015, I had been living for 16 years in Rotterdam, best known perhaps as being Europe’s largest port. A world city for sure. Right on the border with Scotland, Berwick has a population of about 12,000 and is England’s most northerly town. 50 miles from the nearest city. I’d the idea I’d need to acclimatise to small town life! However, what Berwick’s really taught me is that smaller towns are no less global than larger ones. Not only the experiences and perspectives of people living and working here but the social, economic, and political things at play. The difference maybe is that they’re closer to the surface.

You were speaking of how the Festival’s films and filmmakers engage directly with pressing global issues – from environmental crisis to how digital capitalism impacts our forming and performing of identity. These issues are as closely felt in Berwick as they are in Rotterdam. There’s no dichotomy at play there.

Berwick famously changed hands between England and Scotland more than a dozen hands, the riverside footpath is a former Roman road, the local dialect has strong Roma and traveller influences… what might be considered local is much more complex and porous and multidimensional than a first glance might suggest.

It’s nevertheless very exciting for all of us Berwickers to welcome so many filmmakers to town for the Festival weekend…. audiences from across the UK and beyond! It’s a beautiful place to live or be for a few days and come back to again and again. The Tweed river and North sea are within a few minutes’ walk. The Festival’s origins and continuation lie in the hospitality and generosity of its people and their unbounded imagination of what’s possible here. We carry that flame as best we can!

Diversity in storytelling is ever more crucial in today’s cultural landscape. How does BFMAF approach the inclusion of diverse voices, particularly from underrepresented communities, in its programming?

Thanks for the question Will! Diversity’s a tricky word. Maybe better for describing shopping or something! The Festival’s outlook is more about recognising that many people are minoritised in very complex ways. I find the term “Global Majority” very constructive in de-centering my own perspectives on this. Festival programmes or the notes accompanying them often speak of “seldom seen films” or “voices from the margins”. However, this depends on where you’re looking from! I hope that in listening and learning and involving more people in our work, BFMAF can contribute something to flipping these perspectives on their head.

As you reflect on this year’s festival, what are your aspirations for BFMAF in the coming years, and how do you envision its evolution in the ever-changing landscape of film and media arts?

One of my biggest fears is hubris. In even vocalising the fear, I worry it brings it all closer! One of BFMAF’s formal aims and objectives is to “embody a work in progress mentality”. It’s meant very seriously and hopefully keeps us humble and responsive! As a slight aside, I know of only one book on Film Festival management. It’s Alex Fischer’s “Sustainable Projections” published by St. Andrews University back in 2013. I’ve still not managed to finish it but the first few pages are already completely disarming and instructive. Fischer describes how entropy — a state of chaos, disorder, and uncertainty — is the only thing you can rely on when running a Festival. Pretty much like life then!

Now, with only a few days to go before the Festival kicks off and many people already on the road to get here, it’s more a case of taking inspiration from the words of 90s self-help guru Susan Jeffers to “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” ha-ha! There are the inevitable nerves and in parallel, so much excitement and gratitude for all my colleagues’ work and BFMAF’s audiences and supporters who make the Festival possible. Particularly of course the artists and filmmakers for trusting us to share their work! We’re completely dependent on them all.

“Diversity’s a tricky word. Maybe better for describing shopping or something!”

Meanwhile many lifelong ambitions are coming into reality during this 19th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival. Or the beginnings of them. Year-round jobs for programmers — supported by Arts Council England, BFI and North of Tyne Combined Authority — are a first for us! They’re part-time jobs but still all too rare a thing at film festivals. Even the biggest ones with multimillion pounds’ budgets. So, moving into the new festival year beginning this week, I’m overjoyed to be working with BFMAF programmers Alice Miller, Myriam Mouflih and Dawn Bothwell not just for the intense months running up to the Festival, but throughout all the seasons of the year! Or at least until they themselves decide otherwise. Having guaranteed work is so much better for them, our audiences, and filmmakers too. A quiet revolution in our ways of working together.

Interconnected to these potentials, following years of fundraising, research, and development, is a brand new “Public Programmer” job. Dawn Bothwell took up the job in December and her “Burr of Berwick” programme (literally inspired by Berwickers’ accents and dialect) launches at the Festival this week. It will evolve and regenerate throughout the year and beyond. The Burr’s a new pop-up social space, screening library and discussion series which will be hankering down in one of Marygate — Berwick High Street’s — empty shops before finding new homes later in the year! With workshops and daily conversations on subjects such as “Hyem/Home”, “Of/Duty” and “Nurture/Nature” it’s another fun way to bring people together and learn from each other’s ideas, stories, and experiences!

Featured Image: Mark Pinder

BFMAF will run from the 7th to the 10th of March 2024. For the full programme and tickets, click here.