‘Past Lives Project’ Seeks Amateur Belper Movie Footage

The ‘Past Lives Project’ is calling out to Belper residents for amateur cine film, home movies, photos, local music and oral history.

The project works with film depositors and participants to make new films and music scores. In each region there is a grand finale to show the local movies.

Belper On Film

Having run the project for three years in various regions in the Midlands, the group have now  secured funding to work on the visual history of Belper Town.

Project organiser, Dave Sturt, said: “We’ve already got some lovely footage but we’d like to see if anymore can be unearthed. We can pay for digitisation of any film that we use and we give back a copy to the depositor.”

Lots of different types of footage are used as, in the context of the film, it is all social history. This could include weddings, parties, parades, home, workplace, your prize parsnip or families playing in the garden – anything could be of interest to the final film.

They are putting together a film from home movie footage and it can be on any cine format from standard to super 8, 9.5m or 16mm. Once finished it is then soundtracked along with local musicians and it will be performed live at the Ritz in December.

Though the performance – at The Ritz on 11th of December – sold out within 2 hours of going on sale they are endeavouring to find alternative performance possibilities.

The project is run in conjunction with Fleet arts and is funded by The Harrison Trust, Belper Town Council, Derbyshire County Council and the Derbyshire Music Education Hub, the Kunst Gallery, the Ritz cinema and 45 Degrees Design and Print.

They can help out with converting your films or offer advice about what to do with them.
Please contact them on info@pastlivesproject.com or visit their site at www.pastlivesproject.com