Broads Documentary Films
Six teams of young Norfolk people were given the opportunity to produce film features centred on Broadland, it’s life, times and issues. Following an intensive period of film production training they have now produced six short Broads documentary films which were screened in September 2012 at Cinema City in Norwich.
The wherry is the traditional sailing barge of the Norfolk Broads. Some of the boats have now been preserved – but the people who sail them feel the passing of the years.
This film portrays the life of of a marsh-warden in a remote area of the Norfolk Broads, usually accessible by visitors. The warden featured is actually the film-maker’s grandfather.
Love Story is a romance set in the Norfolk Broads. The landscape appears unchanging, but its people are more fleeting visitors.
In a good summer, clouds of swallowtail butterflies shimmer over the Broadland marshes. This year, unusual weather patterns have made them much harder to find.
Land of the Giants is a personal view of the wind-pumps and windmills which are such awe-inspiring feature of the Broadland landscape. The film-maker has recorded his reponses in his native Romanian.
Angling in Norfolk is as old as the Norfolk Broads themselves. But it is not everyday a young fisherman handles a giant pike.
Ashir Abbas, head of media studies at the the Lynn Grove High School Gorleston along with TV consultant Ian Masters and Mark Wells, a former BBC and ITV journalist, currently Director of Broadcast Journalism courses at the UEA, came up with the concept of teaching a group of young people on how to make documentary films and then harnessing those skills in the production of a series of unique perspectives centred on the Norfolk Broads. The youth filming project was the idea of former BBC broadcaster Ian Masters who is a trustee of the Society.
The Broads Society trustees welcomed this initiative and undertook to part fund the year-long filming operation.
The concept attracted joint funding from both the Broads Society and the Broads Authority’s Sustainable Development Fund. A brilliant opportunity introducing young people to the delights of the Broads.
The young producers aged between fifteen and twenty have spent the last year working in their own time with the training based around Lynn Grove High School in Gorleston. The programmes have all come from their own ideas, their own research and their hands-on production skills.