In 1609, an English merchant ship called the ‘Sea Venture’, heading for the US colonies in Virginia, bumped into an island in the middle of the Atlantic which no one knew was there. Finding it to be a not unpleasant place, the captain and crew took their time making the necessary repairs, completed their voyage to Virginia, then headed back to London and started telling people about this little spot of paradise they had just discovered. Several pamphlets were published, one of which is believed to have been read by Shakespeare and to have inspired The Tempest.

John Madden gives the Prospero lecture at BIFF 2001

Shortly afterwards, Bermuda became an English colony and, by the 19th century, was already popular with the discerning traveller. “You can go to heaven if you want,” Mark Twain is reported to have said, “I’d rather go to Bermuda.”

Since then, the island has been a favoured spot for sailors, golfers, holiday-makers and international finance companies attracted by the fact that Bermuda has no income tax (although it does have a number of indirect taxes and, given the general level of wealth, a highly developed social welfare system).

Since 1997, the island has also hosted the Bermuda International Film Festival, a relaxed but ambitious event which attracts film-makers from around the Atlantic rim, and boasts industry heavyweights such as Canada’s Victor Loewy and LA lawyer Mark Litwak among its international advisers. Partly funded by the Government of Bermuda, BIFF is a registered charity receiving sponsorship from principal partners the ACE Group and the Elbow Beach Hotel, plus a wide range of other island industries, apparently keen to show their gratitude for the island’s climate, meteorological as well as fiscal.

Nor has the Festival had much difficulty in attracting top-level jurors: last year’s chairman was Time Magazine’s Richard Schickel, and this year’s the near-legendary New York critic Rex Reed, both of whom would have been more than qualified to sit on any festival jury in the world, including Cannes. “Our aim,” says business affairs director Duncan Hall, “is to become one of the great small but well-respected festivals”. After five editions, I’d say they were well on their way.

The original idea for BIFF came from ‘the two Stans’ - prominent island figures Stan Ratteray and Stan Chetowski - who had long been active in promoting the arts in Bermuda, and who wanted to extend the net to include film. Aideen Ratteray Pryse, a McGill-educated town-planner, became the Festival director, with Hall, a lawyer, media consultant and journalist - who, by his own admission, still hasn’t decided what he wants to be when he grows up - as director of business affairs, and David O’Beirne as deputy director and programmer.

Shopping trips are made to Toronto, Edinburgh, Venice and Rotterdam (which Ratteray Pryse describes as “the best film festival I’ve been to”). This year’s programme included an impressive line-up of titles from the US, the UK, Canada, western and eastern Europe, South Africa and Japan. There are also annual focuses on film-making on other islands - last year Ireland, this year Australia (a “rather big island,” admits Hall) and daily, extremely well-attended panel discussions.

Stephen Baldwin hands Bermudian director Errol Williams the 2002 Audience Award as Festival director Aideen Ratteray Pryse looks on

“For people on the island,” says Hall, “this is the week. It’s not like New York where you can sign up for a two-month course on world cinema whenever you feel like it.”

The top feature prize at the 2002 event (April 12-18) went to Bruce Sweeney’s Canadian film, Last Wedding, with special mentions to Malunde (Stefanie Sycholt, South Africa) and Shoujyo (An Adolescent, Eiji Okuda, Japan). The documentary prize went to Judith Helfand and Daniel Gold’s Blue Vinyl. And the audience award - welcomed with whoops of delight by the closing night crowd - went to Bermudian Errol Williams’ When Voices Rise…

A documentary about the 1959 cinema boycott which ended segregation on the island and ushered in a period of unprecedented change, When Voices Rise… was a fitting choice, since the Festival director’s dad, Stan, was one of the organisers of the original boycott.

2002 ‘Special mention’ Malunde