Nidd Films

28/10/2025

SWEETHEART LATEST NEWS

Read more: https://www.niddfilms.com/news

22/10/2025

https://www.niddfilms.com/sweetheart

Bloodlines and Inheritance

The French Romantic Gothic style of Sweetheart: Angel of the Moor isn’t just an artistic choice —
it’s born of the bloodlines that shaped Nidderdale itself.

Brigante Celts, Saxons, Norse, and Normans —
a lineage written into every field, wall, and chapel.

Our producer’s own ancestry traces the same path,
from Brittany to Yorkshire,
where the past lingers in the wind
and the stones remember their names.

The land remembers us.
And sometimes, if you observe quietly, it talks back.

https://www.niddfilms.com/sweetheart

15/10/2025

Between Story and Soil: England’s Lost Myth Lives On

New blog post from Nidd Films

England’s ancient forests still whisper their legends — from Sherwood to Knaresborough, where traces of Robin Hood’s name linger in the lanes and valleys.

In my latest post, I explore how myths like Robin Hood’s — and Tolkien’s belief in the “fragments of true light” — continue to shape our sense of place and identity. These stories aren’t gone; they’re buried in the soil beneath our feet.

Read more on the Nidd Films blog:

https://www.niddfilms.com/blog

Nidd Films is an independent production company in North Yorkshire, creating historical dramas and true story adaptations. Founded by producer Mark Anthony, we bring forgotten voices and regional history to the screen with cinematic craft and emotional truth

13/10/2025

✨ Bring Back the Sparkle ✨

Our upcoming short film Sweetheart: Angel of the Moor is rooted in Yorkshire’s forgotten voices and ghostly folklore.

We would love you to get involved so we’re launching the Vanishing Fairies Poster Challenge — inviting artists, illustrators, and dreamers to reimagine the hidden stories that shaped the moors.

Your artwork could:
🎨 Feature in our campaign
🎟 Earn a VIP invite to the premiere
💫 Help keep folklore and silenced voices alive

Let’s bring a little sparkle — and a touch of the supernatural — back to the forest. 🌲

Tag and use to take part.
🕯 Entries close 12 January 2026

Find out more here: https://www.niddfilms.com/post/bring-a-little-sparkle-back

09/10/2025

“Now Is the Time to Listen — To Heal, Remember, Renew.”

We are constantly told stories of death, unimaginable pain, loss, and suffering.
Every day we are reminded of history’s greatest lessons — yet still, we rarely listen.

When will we truly hear the voices from the past?
When will we find the strength to stop, to stand up, and to say — no more?

History is our greatest teacher,
and it speaks not in anger, but in remembrance.

Sweetheart: Angel of the Moor carries the story of Mary-Jane Skaife,
whose death in 1858 still echoes across the dales.

Like the pelican who feeds her young with her own blood,
her story becomes a symbol of love, resilience, and renewal —
a reminder that compassion can rise even from tragedy.

At a time when the world feels divided and heavy with conflict,
this story asks us to pause, to listen, and to act with empathy.

Now is the time to listen — to heal, remember, renew.

— Mark Anthony
Producer, Nidd Films

08/10/2025

When we filmed at St Saviour’s Church in Thornthwaite, one small detail caught my eye, a pelican feeding her young in the stained glass.

It’s more than decoration. The “pelican in her piety” is an ancient Christian symbol of sacrifice and renewal, and it once appeared in the windows of New Hall, Fewston, home of the Pulleyne family before the valley was flooded to create Swinsty Reservoir in 1867.

Standing there, I couldn’t help but think of West End, the chapel and community now lost beneath the water, and the stories that still find their way back to the surface. The same light that falls through Thornthwaite’s window seems to carry something of that vanished world, memory, faith, and endurance.

These are the threads that run through Sweetheart: Angel of the Moor and into the next chapter, Those Who Belong to the Deer, stories about how landscape remembers, and how love and loss are carried forward in light and shadow.

Image courtesy of Nidd Films, 2025. Photographer Angus Chau. All rights reserved.

Read the full article in our latest blog post here:

https://www.niddfilms.com/blog

06/10/2025

The Witches of the Forest

In 1621, Edward Fairfax of Newhall, Fewston accused six women from Timble and Fewston of witchcraft, neighbours, healers, mothers. Their names — Waite, Dibb, Dickenson, Bill, Foster, Pannell — still echo through the Forest of Knaresborough today.

Tried and acquitted at York Castle, their story speaks of fear, control, and how easily faith became a weapon against women.
Fairfax lived less than a mile from where Mary-Jane Skaife’s story begins two centuries later — the same soil, the same silence.

Photo: (W. Grainge, History & Topography of the Forest of Knaresborough, 1895. Internet Archive.)

Sweetheart: Angel of the Moor
A Nidd Films production
Written & Produced by Mark Anthony

Read more: https://www.niddfilms.com/blog

06/10/2025

New Blog: The Ghosts of Shakespeare in Sweetheart: Angel of the Moor

How do stories of the past linger in the mind?
In my latest piece, I explore how Sweetheart carries the echoes of Shakespeare’s tragedies: love, jealousy, conscience, and the silence of women’s voices.

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” The Tempest, IV, i

Read now: www.niddfilms.com/blog

04/10/2025

Remembering the Lost, Honouring the Living.

Each year, Sheffield DocFest’s Alternate Realities programme explores how storytelling can hold space for grief, memory, and resilience. This year’s focus on loss and resistance resonates deeply with Sweetheart: Angel of the Moor — a story rooted in real events but speaking to the silenced voices of women across generations.

Stories like these remind us that remembrance is not passive — it’s an act of justice.

🔗 Read the Aesthetica piece: https://aestheticamagazine.com/remembering-the-lost-honouring-the-living/

Sheffield DocFest returns with their Alternate Realities programme, where artist Baff Akoto redefines what storytelling is in the 21st century.

02/10/2025

Mary-Jane Skaife stands at the heart of Sweetheart: Angel of the Moor. More than a name in a forgotten newspaper column, she was a young woman navigating love, expectation, and reputation in 19th-century Yorkshire. Her story, silenced by violence and obscured by history, becomes here a voice reclaimed — a reminder of the strength, hope, and humanity that endure even in tragedy.

29/09/2025

🕯️ On This Day in History

On 29 September 1914, James Atkinson — of the prominent Atkinson family of the Forest of Knaresborough — died at Broadmoor Asylum in Berkshire. His final resting place lies in Broadmoor Asylum Cemetery, Crowthorne, far from the Yorkshire roots where his story began.

By contrast, Mary-Jane Skaife was laid to rest at St Jude’s, Hartwith — her voice, silenced in 1858, is the one we seek to remember through Sweetheart: Angel of the Moor.

Image: Broadmoor Asylum Cemetery, Crowthorne (via Find A Grave).

📖 Read more on our blog: The Death of James Atkinson → https://www.niddfilms.com/post/the-death-of-james-atkinson

24/09/2025

🌿 Walking Into the Past, Eyes Fixed Firmly on the Future 🌿

The forest remembers. Its roots carry messages from another time — linking past to present, strengthening the future.

Through years of research, fragments have surfaced — stories of love, tragedy, defiance, and survival. Stories almost lost.

Sweetheart: Angel of the Moor is the first to return to the screen, restoring a silenced voice and reclaiming a piece of our past. And this is only the beginning.

✨ Read the full story here: https://www.niddfilms.com/blog