Skip to main content

Bournemouth University

BU Research Blog

Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University

  • Home
  • RDS Team
    • Faculty-Facing Staff
    • Funding Development Team
    • Project Delivery Team
    • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Clinical Governance @ BU
  • Research Ethics @ BU
  • REF 2021
    • BU REF 2021 Code of Practice
    • Declaration of Staff Circumstances
    • BU’s Unit of Assessment Teams
    • REF FAQs
    • Archive – REF 2014
      • BU REF 2014 Code of Practice
      • REF 2014 Frequently Asked Questions
        • REF 2014 Overview
        • Staff eligibility
        • Mock REF 2014 (REF preparation) exercises at BU
        • REF 2014 Assessment of outputs
        • REF 2014 Staff selection
        • REF 2014 Equality and diversity
  • Impact
    • Partnerships & collaborations
    • Working with businesses
      • Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)
    • Communicating your research
    • Influencing policy makers
    • Public engagement
      • Quick guide to public engagement
    • Student engagement
      • Stages of engagement
      • Case study: Sean Beer
      • Case study: James Gavin
      • Case study: Anna Feigenbaum
  • Research Toolkit
  • Research Lifecycle
  • Policy
  • PGR
    • The Doctoral College Team

November 23, 2011

World Premiere of Rufus Stone, the movie – an outstanding example of public engagement at BU!

BU research Julie Northam

BU has staged the world premiere of a new film which draws its story from three years of in-depth research to give an account of being gay and growing older in the British countryside. An audience of nearly two hundred walked the red carpet to the screening and gala reception in Kimmeridge House on 16 November.  The premiere was attended by academics, the film’s cast and crew members, the research project’s Advisory Committee and interviewees, all who were joined by a range of citizens of varying age and sexual preference.

Rufus Stone, the movie, is the key output of the three-year ‘Gay and Pleasant Land?’ research project led by BU academic, Dr Kip Jones. The project, about positioning, ageing and gay life in rural South West England and Wales, is a work package in the UK-wide New Dynamics of Ageing Project “Grey and Pleasant Land? : An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Connectivity of Older People in Rural Civic Society”. The projects are funded by Research Councils UK and the film was produced by Parkville Pictures.

The stories which form the foundation of the script for Rufus Stone are entirely based upon research undertaken by Dr Jones and his team from BU’s School of Health and Social Care with the assistance of a citizens’ Advisory Committee. The film’s ‘fictional’ story was created over time using composite characters and situations, all uncovered in the ‘Gay and Pleasant Land? Research Project’, through in-depth biographic life story interviews, focus groups, and actual site visits to the rural locations where older gay or lesbian citizens were living.

Kip Jones says that conversations (rather than formal ‘meetings’) were carried out by the Project’s researchers and advisers, sifting over the materials and stories, putting forth possible plot lines, twists and turns, and developing the main characters whilst constantly shuttling back and forth to and from the research data.

Kip Jones hoped that by engaging the prolific and award-winning Josh Appignanesi as the film’s director that the film and the results of this in-depth research would have even greater impact on a much wider audience.

“Our hope is that the film will dispel many of the myths surrounding ageing, being gay and life in British rural settings,” said Kip Jones, in his role as Executive Producer of Rufus Stone. “The film renders poetically the way in which our memories morph and play with our histories, much as dappled sunlight reveals, then conceals, an idyllic landscape.  

“The trail that we leave is the really important aspect of this project and it’s important, especially in a new field where you are using new methods, to transpose research into something else which can be made more accessible to a much wider audience,” Kip Jones continued. “The ‘documents’ of this work, the finished product, are not simply written journal articles or book chapters or even a full book, but the film itself which is the most tangible and important output that we can achieve.”

 

The story within Rufus Stone dramatises both old and continuing prejudices of village life from three main perspectives. Chiefly it is the story of Rufus, an ‘out’ older gay man who was exiled from his village as a youth and who years later reluctantly returns from London to sell his dead parents’ cottage. In doing this, he is forced to confront the faces of his estranged past. Of these, Abigail is the tattletale who ‘outed’ Rufus 50 years ago when he spurned her interest. Flip, the boy Rufus adored, has also stayed in the village: a life wasted in near celibacy and denial who is looking after his elderly mother. But Rufus too isn’t whole, saddled with an inability to return or forgive.  

The film’s four main characters – Rufus and Flip as both younger and older men – are seamlessly woven in and out of the film with great dramatic effect drawing the viewer in to engage in their youthful exuberance versus their despair at the consequences of age and prejudice.

“The film is a kind of Garden of Eden ‘fall of man’ narrative,” said Appignanesi. “The two main characters, Rufus and Flip, are blissfully unaware and innocent in their joy together in Dorset in the 1950s.  

“Growing up, they start to have some feelings for each other that they don’t have a reference for but they’re real and rather pure,” he continued. “Then the gossips start talking and it’s oblivion: exile for Rufus, until 50 years later when he comes back as a 70-something year old man forced to revisit the home in which he grew up but he hasn’t been back to for years where he encounters the old faces.”

Actor William Gaunt, who plays the aged Rufus, sees the film as a “sad and touching story but also one that talks about the relationship between age, about what it’s like to fall in love when you’re very young and how long that remains with you.  

“From the research that was done into this subject and the stories that grew out of this research, it has an authenticity,” Gaunt said. “You feel that when you read the script and in a way, it could only happen in a rural situation. It’s one of the downsides of life in a village community.”

One member of the audience at the premiere, who wishes to remain anonymous, sums up his reaction to the film’s potential impact: “To say that Rufus Stone is moving is truly accurate, further, to say that its interplay between the two young lovers and their dramatic reunion when much older, is innovative and very effective is likewise very true too.   

“This is an exceptional short film because of its length and the immediacy of the messages it conveys to both oppressed and victimisers. I really feel most strongly that … it could and should play a unique and ground-breaking role in terms of LGBT anti-discrimination educational work at colleges, schools, and especially with internal distribution to UK public services organisations.”

A second screening of Rufus Stone will take place on the Lansdowne campus in the near future  – we’ll announced the date and location on the blog shortly!

This is an excellent example of producing a media output as a means of communicating research findings with the public in an interesting and exciting way. BU will be doing much more of this activity in future so if you’re interested and would like to get involved then contact the RDU!

Tags: communicating research HSC media public engagement RCUK research-based film rufus stone

Related Posts

  • World Premier of Rufus Stone the movieOctober 3, 2011
  • Ultimate trailer for Rufus Stone released!June 12, 2012
  • Rufus Stone to screen Monday 18th March at KimmeridgeMarch 15, 2013
  • Come along to the BU-research based short-film ‘Rufus Stone’ screening & lunch on TuesdayFebruary 23, 2012

BU staff can login below:

Other services

Don’t miss a post!

Subscribe for the BU Research Digest, delivered freshly every day.


 

Recent posts

BU research Funding opportunities EU
  • Tell us about your social, cultural and community events in 2021-22June 27, 2022
  • Panel recruitment: EoI for Deputy Chair (Science, Technology & Health Panel)June 27, 2022
  • What might it be like with delivery drones flying overhead?June 27, 2022
  • Building International PartnershipsJune 26, 2022
  • Last chance to book on a training webinar on evaluating your public engagement – taking place Tuesday 28, 9.30amJune 26, 2022
  • Vitae Conference – Career Development of ResearchersJune 23, 2022
  • Registration open: NIHR Training Camp 2022 virtual event, Tuesday 5 July, 12.30 – 17.15June 22, 2022
  • Parliamentary Knowledge Exchange Opportunity: Thematic Research LeadsJune 22, 2022
  • Funding Development Briefing – Spotlight on…UKRI Future Leader FellowshipsJune 22, 2022
  • Reminder – Spotlight on Wellcome Trust TODAYJune 22, 2022
  • UKRI Future Leader Fellowships Round 7 – Internal Process LaunchedJune 21, 2022
  • Funding Development Briefing – Spotlight on…Wellcome TrustJune 15, 2022
  • MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022June 1, 2022
  • Successful GCRF Systematic Reviewing in Dementia Research Workshop in NepalMay 31, 2022
  • UKRO Subscription Services for BU Academics and StaffMay 23, 2022
  • EU Funding News, May 2022May 17, 2022
  • COST actions – European Cooperation in Science and TechnologyMarch 24, 2022
  • HE policy update for the w/e 18th March 2022March 21, 2022

Search by Category

Search by popular post topics

AHRC Brexit BRIAN BU research clinical research CMMPH collaboration collaborative research conference congratulations Edwin-blog-post ESRC EU Europe event Events Festival of Learning funding funding opportunities Fusion Fusion Investment Fund Health horizon 2020 HSC impact innovation knowledge exchange media midwifery Nepal nhs NIHR open access Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen publication public engagement publishing ref research Research Councils research professional RKE development framework social sciences training widening participation

RSS Research Information Network

  • Physical Sciences Case studies: information use and discovery
  • Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies
  • Information literacy monitoring and evaluation
  • Data centres: their use, value and impact
  • Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications

RSS UKRI

Browse all our categories
  • Awarded & submitted bids
  • BRIAN
  • BU Challenges
  • BU research
  • BU2025
  • Business Engagement
  • Centre for Excellence in Learning
  • Clinical Governance
  • Coffee Morning
  • conferences
  • COVID-19
  • data management
  • Delicious links
  • Doctoral College
  • ECR Network
  • EPSRC
  • ESRC
  • EU
  • Events
  • Featured
  • Featured academics
  • Festival of Learning
  • Friday profile
  • Funding opportunities
  • Fusion
  • Fusion Investment Fund
  • Fusion themes
  • Global engagement
  • Grants Academy
  • Guidance
  • hate crime
  • HE-BCI
  • HEIF
  • HSS Our 9 Research Entities
  • humanities
  • Impact
  • Industry collaboration
  • Info Days
  • innovation
  • international
  • Knowledge Exchange
  • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Knowledge Transfer
  • Knowledge Transfer Partnership
  • News from the PVC
  • nhs
  • NHS
  • open accecss
  • open access
  • parliament
  • Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
  • PG research
  • policy
  • Post-award
  • Postgraduate Research
  • pre-award
  • Public engagement
  • Publishing
  • R & KE Operations
  • REF Subjects
  • Research assessment
  • Research Centres
  • Research communication
  • Research Concordat
  • Research Ethics
  • Research Integritiy
  • research integrity
  • research methods
  • Research news
  • research opportunities
  • research staff
  • Research Supervision
  • Research themes
  • Research Training
  • RKE development framework
  • staff profile pages
  • Strategic Investment Areas
  • Student Engagement
  • student research
  • the conversation
  • Training
  • UKRI
  • Uncategorized
  • Vitae
  • Women's Academic Network
  • writing
  • Twitter

© Bournemouth University 2022. All rights reserved.

  • Charitable status
  • Website privacy & cookies
  • Copyright and terms of use