St Weonard's-based film maker, Lisle Turner, is celebrating the distrubution of his first feature film, Here and Now, across the UK. This follows a rousing reception from the critics at the East End film festival in London recently. He is delighted it is playing here, back on home turf, at Hereford's Courtyard Theatre.

Lisle has been very pleased with the critics and audiences' reaction thus far: "London and New York audiences are a notoriously tough crowd. My Q&A went on for over an hour, which is unprecedented, with one of the audience saying they had been moved to tears! It's very encouraging for my first feature."

The film is a coming of age teenage love story set in our lovely county, with many scenes filmed just a few miles from Ross, and it looks beautiful. If you look carefully, you might spot some familiar faces. "It's a simple story," said Lisle. "I wanted to show teenagers in a positive light. The two young actors went above and beyond the call of duty." Already, Lisle and his Creative Director at Wrapt media, Martina Klich, are developing their next feature.

Film devotees have already seen the film in Germany, Sweden and the Czech Republic, where the dominant question has been: 'where is this alien landscape?' "They have loved it, because it is very Tolkeinesque and of course the Lord of the Rings was inspired by the landscape of the Golden Valley."

You can catch the film at the Courtyard on July 6/14/15/16 and 17. At the premiere on July 6th Lisle will be doing a post-show Q&A.

For more stories in full please see this week's Ross Gazette.