Wirral International Film Festival organisers given red carpet treatment in Europe

Oct 14 2009 by Matt Hurst, Birkenhead News

WIRRAL International Film Festival (WIFF) organisers have returned from France and Italy, after a week of red carpet treatment and television interviews on the continent.

Alan Veste and Phil Bimpson left Wirral last week to visit the peninsula’s twin towns, Gennevilliers and Lorient in France and Latina in Italy.

The purpose of their trip was to develop links, and collect films to be shown at WIFF 2009, this November.

Alan told the News: “It was absolutely fantastic.

“Latina’s film commission want to get on board, they’re really keen to get involved and even fund some of it.

“Drivers picking us up and taking us to this place and that place, they even put us up in a hotel.”

Much to the pair’s surprise, they were greeted at the airport in Rome by a car with a flashing red light on its roof and whisked the 60 miles through traffic to Latina.

Having already made introductions and picked up around ten films in Lorient and Gennevilliers, Alan and Phil were taken straight to meetings with Latina’s director of film commissions, Rino Piccolo.

Alan said: “They’re so keen to get involved and so happy we went there.

“The only thing was we just felt a bit sad about our own council not getting on board.

“If Latina are going to get involved, great, we’ll just carry on doing it anyway.”

The closing date for entries has been extended to the end of October, call Alan on 07890 455258 for more information.

Wirral Arts – Page 24