Miscellaneous - Tapestry Goes West

  by Mark Rowland

published: 18 / 7 / 2006

intro

The Tapestry Festival in Cornwall is one of the few British festivals to play host to smaller bands, rather than the usual festival acts. Mark Rowland looks at director Caroline Catz's new DVD film about it

Cornwall’s Tapestry festival is one of the few events across the country that play host to some of the great smaller bands out there, rather than the usual festival faces. It is also interestingly held on a theme park just outside Newquay, which gives it a slightly surreal yet fun atmosphere. On the 36-minute documentary ‘Tapestry Goes West’, super-fashionable boys and girls with very precise haircuts are seen walking through what appears to be a town in the Old West. Short interviews with the festival’s hippy-ish creator and the West-country cowboy who runs the park put friendly, slightly eccentric faces to Tapestry, which leads into footage of the bands that played the festival. Director Caroline Catz shot the film on a digital camcorder, and her grainy, slightly shaky footage captures the spirit of the festival perfectly, from the acts on the bigger stages to low-key, impromptu performances. Catz manages to fit in an impressive number of bands into her documentary, which gives a well-rounded feel to the documentary, but this unfortunately means that there is little in the way of full performances in the film. That is the one criticism that can be levelled at the film – it is too short to say anything that lingers. With a longer runtime, Catz could have expanded on elements of her film that feel half-said. It would have been nice to see more of the festival’s creator and the park manager, for example. Both seem such interesting characters that it would be nice to see them in action – preparing for the festival and enjoying the end result. A few interviews with bands and audience members would also add a lot, as well as the aforementioned performance footage. For what it is, however, ‘Tapestry Goes West’ does a great job of selling the festival to its viewers, capturing the good vibes of the festival in a relatively short running time.