Produced and directed by Louisa Rose Mackleston of Northern Fortress Films, a documentary produced for the Ilkley Manor Trust about the Ilkley Lockdown Quilt project. Through the medium of quilting the Ilkley community was able to find expression of their experience of the Coronavirus lockdown by producing individual quilted squares that were brought together and used to make quilted banners that were displayed inside the Ilkley Manor House. Over the opening title a rocky crag overlooking...

Produced and directed by Louisa Rose Mackleston of Northern Fortress Films, a documentary produced for the Ilkley Manor Trust about the Ilkley Lockdown Quilt project. Through the medium of quilting the Ilkley community was able to find expression of their experience of the Coronavirus lockdown by producing individual quilted squares that were brought together and used to make quilted banners that were displayed inside the Ilkley Manor House. Over the opening title a rocky crag overlooking the town of Ilkley in West Yorkshire. Title: The Stories Behind the Squares A montage around Ilkley and a woman’s voice explaining that quilting has a long tradition of storytelling. The local heritage museum of Ilkley Manor House with an Ilkley Civic Society blue plaque on the wall with and the woman explaining it is now a community asset. Inside a group of women looking over a series of quilted squares that are being laid out on a table. As a man wearing a facemask during COVID walks along a street with his children changes to a COVID-19 street sign hangs from a streetlight, the woman explains that during the Coronavirus lockdown they went into the local community and asked them to produce squares that express their experience of lockdown and from them produce a lockdown quilt. As she speaks two women sitting on a bench chatting along a busy shopping street post-COVID and two other women chatting possibly in the Manor House garden. To camera another women explains how this project has brough the community together and allowed people to express their own individual experience of what COVID has meant to them. As she speaks a montage of various quilted squares submitted including one that is stitched ‘Thank You to all our Keyworkers.’ Four women talks about their experience of lockdown and how it affected them as well as their involvement with this project and how it has helped them. In a room the women work together to produce the quilt from the various quilted squares around them. One of the women who spoken previous talks about the importance of Zoom during lockdown and how it has helped her re-connect with friends in London she hadn’t seen for many years. One of the quilted squares featured includes one showing a Zoom call. Standing beside her mother and grandmother a young girl explains that the best bit of lockdown was being with her family more and spending more time with them. More quilted squares feature finishing on one of a saxophone changing to a women playing the instrument. She talks about performing again for people and about producing the quilted square of the saxophone which she holds up. Three other women hold up their quilted squares and talk about what it represents to them about their lockdown experience. Standing outside each of the women featured in this film along with several others plus an older man hold up their individual squares. In voiceover a woman explains how each square is a piece of art, but when you bring these pieces together, they tell the story from the community’s perspective of the lockdown in 2020. A sowing machine stitching the squares together and a woman in a gallery space where several quilt banners are hanging, she checks one of them over. Title: Thank You. The Ilkley Lockdown Quilt project could not have happened without the creative endeavours of the 75 people who made the 126 squares that formed the 8 quilt banners. Thank you to the team of volunteers who put the quilt banners together and those who helped curate the exhibition in the Manor House. Finally, our community also thanks the many volunteers who have their time during the lockdowns to support the community, ran food banks, made scrubs and face coverings, provided entertainment and supported the most vulnerable in our town Bradford 2025: UK City of Culture Bid, Bradford City of Film: A UNESCO Creative City, City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council Northern Fortress Films Credit: Produced and Directed by Louisa Rose Mackleston Cinematographers Patrick Gillespie, Joshua Dykes Editor Sema Bashran Composer Anna Stokes End credit: Runner Shannon Sparkes