Tonight as part of #BristolFoodKind our first ever documentary 100 Miles and 2 Mouths will be shown online, followed by a Q and A.
Here is an original blog post about the food featured in the film: http://www.blackbarkfilms.com/the-food
Our Doc short One Acre is part of the South West Filmathon competition with Devon And Cornwall Film - you can vote for your favourite film here and the winners will receive an audience award - so if you particularly enjoyed our doc short about Liv James at Down Farm, please have a look and give us a vote! 👇
Some comments from the judges...
"Brilliant documentary, great subject matter and deserves a follow up film" - John Tomkins, Filmmaker/Director of the English Riviera Film Festival
"Informative, minimalist, documentary with a stand out atmospheric and ambient original score/soundscape from Ami Kaelyn" - Christopher Williams, Photographer/Producer at Oddhaunts Films
We are up against some absolutely brilliant competition, here are some of our picks from the bunch:
We’re very excited to have won the Women in Cornish Music commission to make a film about the ‘Accidental Choir mistress’ Vicky Abbot.
You can read more about the commission and the other filmmakers we’re excited to be working alongside here.
As is tradition from us here at Black Bark Films... a very happy (albeit belated) New Year!
A little late we know, but we wanted to wait and share the exciting news with you about our latest film The Red Dress, which is currently in production. Until March 12th we’re running a crowdfunder to get us to Mexico, to begin shooting the first part of this incredible journey. For over 10 years, 140 people from 27 different countries have worked on this dress. It transcends borders and brings disparate communities together, empowering the embroiderers and creating connection across the world… all on one piece of fabric.
So far we have raised almost 30% of our target and would love your support to make this important film a reality. You can read more about the project and donate here: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/the-red-dress.
We would also like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has supported Black Bark Films in 2019. We were very excited to have our work with North Devon Moving Image featured on BBC Spotlight, to have chatted with Yaz Brien twice for the Women’s Outlook show on Ujima fm, and once with the Real Women team on BCFM - and to be asked by St Werburgh’s City Farm to speak at their Summer Fayre discussing how we approach filmmaking in a collaborative way. A big thanks to the team at Shambala Festival for featuring our non-gendered menstruation venue The Red Sea Travel Agency on their blog, talking about how our films are tools for compassion.
2020 is already looking exciting, beginning the year with shooting a crowdfunder film for Brithdir Mawr in Pembrokeshire, editing a promo for Kenyan based yoga safari holiday provider Kabisa and preparing for The Red Dress shoot in March. A collection of shorts made for Off The Record’s Freedom Youth were displayed in February as part of a month long exhibition for LGBTQ+ month at the MShed, and later this year we will be heading up to Dumfries with our feature doc In Our Hands. We have various projects in development, including a short on land and trespass, a feature doc with farmer Gerald Miles (from In Our Hands), a menstruation themed short for our friends at the Real Period Project, and a pro bono project for the folk at Borderlands, amongst others.
As always, do get in touch if you have any ideas up your sleeves as we’re always looking to collaborate on projects that we deeply care about, be it crowdfunders, promos, documentaries or providing filmmaking workshops for young people and other groups.
We wish you all a happy and fruitful 2020 and hope to see your faces again soon!
Below are some of our (many) highlights from 2019
We started the year exploring drag and the female gaze with performance artist Viki Brown on Hyperfem as part of her residency at Trinity centre in Bristol.
Winning a commission for Down on the Farm producing One Acre a 5 minute short with young female farmer Liv James of Down Farm, which is now on display in Barnstaple Museum, as part of a permanent collection.
Exploring menopause and identity with performance artist Kat Lyons on her spoken word theatre project Dry Season creating both a research and development short and promotional film.
Producing a crowdfunder film for our friends at the Community Kitchen in Bristol, who now have their new kitchen up and running. We are so very proud of them and so grateful to help such an amazing project!
In Our Hands is continuing to do the rounds at festivals and community screenings, landing the AgroJury Film award in Slovakia in 2019. You can watch it here for free, and the subtitled versions in Spanish, French and German are also available here.
Spending time with Off The Record’s LGBTQ+ Freedom Youth group, to make a series of shorts celebrating 25 years of the group. We were endlessly inspired by the courage, confidence and acceptance of these young people.
We began working with Lifebeat around the transformational power of youth leadership, creating promotional films for the project and working collaboratively with more inspiring young people to create youth led, film based responses to issues around identity and mental health.
We were back at Shambala festival with The Red Sea Travel Agency - a co-creation between Black Bark Films and No More Taboo. It's the first gender inclusive, dedicated menstruation space to be held at a UK festival.
A second stop motion animation featuring our favourite potatoes for the Sims Hill Crowdfunder to fund an apprentice grower.
Our first ever music video for our friends Fitty Gomash, which included filming a 300 strong ceilidh at Oxford Real Farming Conference 2019.
And finally we began small business coaching with the powerful Esme Filsinger. We cannot recommend her services enough and look forward to growing through 2020 with her guidance and expertise!
Thanks to Devon and Cornwall Film for this interview about our latest short 'One Acre'. We certainly feel it is beautiful and rewarding work to be allowed to share the stories of Liv and Henry and their lives on Down Farm.
First published on Devon and Cornwall Film.
Beautiful and rewarding: One Acre by Black Bark Films
JANUARY 16, 2020 BY D&CFILM
In the short documentary One Acre, Jo Barker and Holly Black of Black Bark Films teamed up with Dee Butterly of the Landworkers’ Alliance for a film about a young woman’s entry into sustainable farming.
One Acre was part of the Down on the Farm series of commissions from North Devon Moving Image. It gave Jo and Holly an opportunity to deepen their experience of farming and food activism. We caught up with them to chat about their experience.
D&CFilm: What was it about the Down on the Farm project, and Down Farm, that attracted you?
HB: As filmmakers that helped to create In Our Hands and 100 Miles and 2 Mouths – both films about innovative farmers and food activism, we have experience of making films around these themes – and we love this topic very much – so we felt Black Bark was a really good fit for the Down on the Farm commission.
JB: I loved the idea of it being centralised to one area, as it allowed us to be more geographically specific with the story we told, whilst also connecting it to a wider context within UK farming.
D&CFilm: Holly and Jo, how did you get together with Dee and how did the relationship flow in terms of the film?
HB: We have been doing bits of filming for the Landworkers’ Alliance over the past few years, helping to capture the growth of a powerful social movement of young people, so we have known Dee for a while and always felt inspired by the way that she approaches issues with such insight – and we knew Dee has a keen interest in film. As a filmmaking process it was really good for us to work with someone outside of Black Bark Films. We felt challenged – in a very good way!
D&CFilm: What sort of visual language did you use to present the themes of the film?
HB: We spent a lot of time in pre-production talking to Liv and thinking about how best to present her story of being at Down Farm without being too explicit. She is a very gentle and thoughtful character, and we used long hand-held shots with intimate close ups of her and Henry’s day to day activities to reflect this.
JB: Spending time on the farm on the recces without filming allowed us to observe what we felt whilst being there and how we saw Liv and Henry in context to their environment. That in turn lead us to pick more deeply the images that we wanted to concentrate on, ie. the long held shot of them peeling back the netting in their morning routine, which was also a key part of the soundscape we created too.
D&CFilm: How important was it to build a rapport with Liv and Henry at Down Farm?
HB: Very important to us, as it is with all of our filmmaking. Previous to making One Acre we met them at a couple of LWA events and then we visited the farm twice before even getting a camera out! Now we get to hang out at festivals and mutual friends’ farms so I guess we didn’t put them off being in front of the camera too much…
JB: We deeply respect what it means to ask someone for permission to observe them, interpret them and then retell their story. It’s a very precious thing to be allowed to do that and meeting them as people before we put a camera up is key to how we work.
D&CFilm: You were looking at a female Somerset-based composer who is also a farmer for the score. How did that work out and how important is the music to the film?
HB: Ami is a friend who I’ve known for years through Emily Teague, a musician that we have worked with a lot in the past. I knew Ami had been working at a farm out in Malmesbury and Jo and I bumped into her at a farm in Bristol, so it felt very fortuitous to have someone so talented that also has first hand understanding of what farming small scale entails.
D&CFilm: Tell us more about your broader filmmaking and how your Down on the Farm film fits into that, particularly your feature documentary In Our Hands?
HB: Down the Farm has given us a great opportunity to flex our artistic muscles in a way that’s really true to our method of filmmaking. Since In Our Hands we have mostly been doing client based work, and One Acre allowed us to have complete control of our outputs which feels really powerful. I wish we could do more work like this!
JB: With In Our Hands we had a clear agenda and brief but the Landworker’s Alliance were amazing producers, they took a very hands off approach and we felt able to really develop our style as filmmakers. We felt this again with One Acre, with the process allowing us to question a lot about why we would include a particular shot and ask deeper questions to it’s relevance as part of the story. We really thought about every shot, every line and every pause as to its intention.
D&CFilm: What is the role of the filmmaker / artist in society?
HB: Filmmakers have a significant social role to play in society, I think – as do all artists. At Black Bark Films we are so aware of the political and ethical nature of our work, of putting images and words together to tell a story that usually is not ours. There is such a responsibility that comes with this.
JB: In every society there are observers that interpret their environment in ways that help others better to understand it, or glimpse a window into an alternate ways of looking at something. I see film as a tool for compassion, to bring about more understanding and empathy,
D&CFilm: Food politics is key to the future and facing up to the climate emergency. How does Down Farm fit in with that?
HB: Down Farm is just one example of how loads of produce can be produced from such a small area, with no machinery. The veg is delicious (we can vouch for it first hand) and it is a local business that contributes positively to the environment and to the health of the soil. There are so many reasons that we need to rethink agriculture in the UK and small scale farming is definitely an important part of this.
JB: I think Liv is very open about the struggles their method of farming can produce and they are constantly thinking of ways to combat this, by diversifying their crops, growing spaces and looking to their own future physical health. I see Down Farm as rooted in their present in order to learn from the past and prepare for their future.
D&CFilm: Do you think the reality of farming is largely overlooked?
HB: That’s very difficult to answer. Farming comes in all shapes and sizes. I think there is a tendency in mainstream thought to forget about small scale, local and organic farms. It’s a tough job, as Dee can tell you – but it’s beautiful and rewarding, and we hope One Acre shows that.