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A mesmerising film of the Isle of Man combining poetry, music & beautiful visuals.

Starting with the poetry of Mona Douglas RBV and the Manx music of Scran, Felipe Kowalczuk has created a beautiful visual celebration of the Isle of Man and the "spell of love" it casts over anyone who calls it their home.

Created by Open Water Films for Culture Vannin as a #treisht2020 project during the covid19 lockdown of 2020, this film takes us on a journey into the Isle of Man an exposes the pull it has for anyone who is of the Island.

The poems by Mona Douglas RBV featured in this film are as follows:

 

LONGING
by Mona Douglas

I'm hearing the call of the waves to the shore
When night-shadows lie on the sea,
And the passionate hunger that throbs at its core
Is the cry of an exile, who longs,
Ellan Vannin, for thee!

I'm hearing the cry of the wind to the hill,
Its low wail of longing and pain;
And the long note of heart-break that beats through it still
Is the moan of the dying, who thirst
For their Homeland in vain.

 

MANXMEN ABROAD
by Mona Douglas

Not for us the life of cities, where the tides of commerce flow,
And the smoke-pall hides its prisoners from skies that gleam and glow,
Where the steady roar of traffic and the endless tramp of feet
Are combined into the madness of a regulation beat!

Not for us the rolling prairies, and the magic of the trail,
When the fog is on the rivers, and the lone coyotes wail,
Or the snowy Northern wilderness, where shadowy were-wolves are,
And the silent wastes of No-man’s-land stretch round one near and far.

But away across the ocean there’s a little isle of rest —
Just a tiny twilight country tucked away into the West,
With the mist upon its curragh-lands where drowsy blackbirds throng,
And the music of creation in the sea-wind’s good-night song!

It’s our little Ellan Vannin that is holding us in thrall,
And in countries half the world away we hear its mystic call,
So we dwell within the shadow of the “green hills by the sea” —
For a spell of love is holding us to “Thalloo veen ma chree!”

 

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