This article is from page 16 of the 2012-04-03 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 16 JPG
A DOCUMENTARY that will showcase the Burren is set to be filmed over the next year in a major project that aims to reconnect people with their natural surroundings.
Lahinch-based filmmaker Katrina Costello is behind the project, drawing her inspiration from the Burren hinterland that she calls “the most spectacular and most beautiful place in the world”.
“It’s taking metaphors for the natural world to create a better understanding of our own nature and who we are and the circle of life. It’s basically getting enlightenment from nature,” she says. “We will take metaphors from the landscape and reflect them back onto our own lives. Nature is a great teacher that it’s enlightening and inspiring and that’s where we get our ideas. There will be a number of strands to it. We’ll be following a farmer who produces organic produce in his livestock and his crops. The grasses are all species rich – all the livestock are grazed for a longer time than they would in highintensity farming.
“Also, I’d like to hear from people who know the locations of dens and nests, be they squirrels, foxes, birds of prey, barn owls etc. We will be looking at the wildlife of the Burren, ex- otic flowers, everything that people flood to the Burren to see,” she adds.
According to Ms Costello, it’s the current economic climate that makes it ripe for a documentary of this type to be filmed. Her project has a working title of ‘Landscapes of the Heart’.
“When it’s finished it will be a onehour documentary film and it’s about people and places in the Burren,” she says. “Maybe it’s a time to go back to the land, reconnect with nature, reconnect with our spirituality.
“People are more receptive to nature now. People are more receptive to producing food in a way that people want to go back to traditional methods of farming,” she adds.