Shoreline by Anna Napa and Football by Omran Al Koteishe are films made as part of the ‘Real Tees Valley’ project from Tees Valley Arts.
Tees Valley Arts is a charity that uses the arts to create social change. They believe that: ‘the arts and culture create societies and offer challenges to the status quo’. They also believe that ‘communities have a right to tell their stories which reflect their past and will shape their future’. They have been working across Teesside for nearly 40 years and have facilitated and co-produced hundreds of projects. These focus on a wide range of visual and performing arts including painting, crafts, sculpture, music, dance, film and animation, as well as poetry, spoken word and creative writing.
The charity’s ‘Real Tees Valley’ project enabled young people across the five boroughs of the Tees Valley to tell their own stories of living in the area, through the medium of film. Young prospective and developing film-makers worked alongside six professional film-maker mentors, led by local filmmaker Maxy Bianco to create their films:
“The project explored what place and culture meant to this group and wrote a new narrative for the Tees Valley, away from the traditional headlines of industrial boom and decline, through using real voices to illustrate life in contemporary Teesside directly from those who might carve out its future.” [1]
In Shoreline, Anna Napa takes us on a journey along Hartlepool’s coast and other areas of the town. Anna is also a spoken word artist, and uses her own prose to narrate the film.
Omran Al Koteishe came to live in the Tees Valley from Syria. His film, Football, sees Omran exploring a sense of belonging through his passion for the ‘beautiful game’.
The full set of films has been curated into five themes by Maxy Bianco: Place, Culture, Diversity, Community, Life. They can all be viewed here
Past projects focusing on a wide range of artforms can be viewed here
[1] https://www.teesvalleyarts.org.uk/projects/great-place-tees-valley/real-tees-valley/