This has been a long, long weekend: four days celebrating the 70 year reign of Queen Elizabeth. In 1953, Brian Clark spied the Queen being crowned. He looked through a shop window into the miniature screen of a 1950s television. 40 years later he looked the Queen in the eye at Buckingham Palace when he received his OBE. And only two weeks ago he had a cataract removed. Individual growth, scientific development, personal memory and social perspective - all summed up in the journey of an eyeball! And on Thursday 2nd June we were able to premiere If My Memory Serves Me, an 'oral history documentary' about the life stories of people who have lived through this Elizabethan era.
This was the first outing for a film that I produced with Sam Hepworth of Hepworth Media directing, hosted by the Bijou Cinema Southport, UK, with support from Sefton Advocacy, Liverpool Community Foundation/Arts Council Let's Create and Sefton CVS.
We have been interviewing members of Sefton Older People's Forum about the benefit of the forum as a way of representing their experiences and advocating for older people.
Ken Lowe let us have his Super 8 film. He thought he had footage of the launch of the QE2, the UK sea-going equivalent of Air Force One.
There were some shots of the Clyde but not of the QE2.
But there were also some beautiful images of holidays by the sea.
What sense did the audience make of the film? At the after-screen party (the photo at the top) guests talked about the subtle links that were made between these moving personal stories. Perhaps what stands out most is how the members of OPF have defined their own sense of 'service', often as a consequence of some of the more challenging moments in their lives. As well as an individual achievement this weekend, it seems worth celebrating the achievements of this modest generation as a whole.
Now we move on to making the Director's Cut - refining the film and submitting it to festivals and local screenings.
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