Poetic film well versed in town life (From Stroud News and Journal)

Poetic film well versed in town life

PREVIEW

No Time to Stand and Stare Premiere at Christchurch, Nailsworth Wednesday, April 27 at 7.30pm

NO Time to Stand and Stare, the specially commissioned film being premiered at the Nailsworth Festival at 7.30pm on Wednesday, April 27, is a charming, poetic essay in civic pride.

Narrated by local postman Mervyn Rudge, who, in a neat conceit, investigates the lives of some Nailsworth worthies "on the other side of the letterbox", the film delves into the lives of a multi-cultural selection of residents.

Many of the interviewees arrived in the town in the last 35 years, and the film effectively teases out the reasons they have stayed.

For Bangladeshi-born Mohibur Rohman, owner of The Passage to India, it is the welcoming, open-minded attitude; for native New Yorker Marlyn Leese it is the artistic community - redolent, she says, of Greenwich Village in the 1960s.

It is regrettable that there is not more footage of the town and its exquisite surroundings in the film - but what there is has been beautifully edited and sound-tracked by local musicians and makes one long to see more.

Making up for this, there is much to savour in the memories and expressions of such pillars of the Nailsworth community as Keld and Anja Liengaard, Ann Makemson and Meinte Applemelk, amongst others.

As a local record, No Time to Stand and Stare is a marvellous overview of what and who has shaped the town as it is today.

It would be very remiss of anyone who loves Nailsworth to miss this film.