Widely regarded as the 20th century’s most important singer of English traditional song, Shirley Collins is someone who was born to invoke the old songs. Deliberately eschewing a straightforward biopic approach, Rob Curry and Tim Plesters film is a lyrical response to the life-and-times of a totemic musical figure.

Shirley Collins was at the epicentre of the British folkmusic revival during the 1960’s and ’70s, before a vocal disorder robbed the world of her uniquely ancestral singing voice. Granted intimate access to recording sessions for her first new album (‘Lodestar’) in almost four decades, and making adventurous use of seminal audio-recordings from the Alan Lomax archives, ‘The Ballad of Shirley Collins’ deliberately eschews the straightforward biopic approach in order to chronicle one woman’s gallant battle to rise phoenix-like from long silent ashes. The film recently completed a successful festival run (Rotterdam, BFI London, CPH:DOX), and built its audience base through a successful Kickstarter campaign which received the backing from many prominent contemporary musicians who hold Shirley and her work in the highest of regards.