WHEN the annual Bermuda International Film Festival begins next week, island attention will focus on some very interesting screen offerings.This traveller has always felt no other medium focused more travel-worthy attention on the world’s most interesting sites than movies filmed in great locations.

So it seems appropriate at this time to focus on several productions set in such exciting locations that the traveller is inspired to immediately pack and leave. They’re the sort of inspiration that if travel agents were waiting at the theatre exit, ticketing would soar.

One receiving recent applause is Miss Potter, the latest production to examine the unusual life of famous artist-writer Beatrix Potter. So that seems a good place to start, since the English Lake District, where parts of it were filmed, definitely deserves travellers’ attention.

This most recent version of her life stars Renée Zellweger as Potter and Ewan McGregor as the editor assigned to work on publication of her first book. As a member of the family who owned the publishing company, he became very enthused with her work.

In many ways Beatrix’s life was as much a fairy tale as her stories which fascinated generations of children. More than 170 million volumes of them have sold in the US alone since World War Two, amazinglyK>Once upon a time, a lonely little girl whose family were heirs to a cotton fortune was taken on holiday to England’s Lake District. There she was allowed a freedom to roam and explore otherwise denied in the strict Victorian household where governesses kept her confined to a nursery.Those vacations made such lasting impressions on Beatrix Potter that she created an imaginary world populated by the animals and lakeland farm life she enjoyed there.

Soon the shy youngster who had been denied a normal childhood and never attended school was smuggling pets and specimens of plant life into her nursery and sketching such “friends” as field mice bedecked in splendid silks and hedgehogs demure in starched gingham. At first those only illustrated picture-letters sent to friends.

But when The Tail of Peter Rabbit was privately printed in 1900, it met with such sensational success, the adventure of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Jemima Puddles-Duck, Mrs. Tittlemouse and Squirrel Nutkin soon followed.

Eventually Frederick Warne and Company brought out 22 of her books in the next 20 years.

During that time, Beatrix became so enchanted with the Lake District, she used a legacy and her royalties to buy Hill Top Farm at Sawrey, close to the western shore of Lake Windermere, where she lived until her death at the age of 77 in 1943.

The 17th-century farm fulfilled her dream of living in the country surrounded by scenery and her treasured vintage furniture. Visiting such quiet traditional villages and touring her house is very worthy of a detour. Being able to combine scenery and the home of a very admired author is something we especially enjoy.

Despite her parents’ strong disapproval, she became engaged to the son of her publisher in 1905. After his sudden death of pernicious anaemia just months later, she retreated to the farm, later marrying her solicitor in 1913.

Breeding Herdwick sheep became a prime interest, as did preservation of her beloved Lake District and involvement in the National Trust.

There was a very attractive antique secretary in her bedroom, very much like one in our family for generations.

“Have you ever examined the secret compartments?” my brother Jim asked the docent acting as guide on our visit.

“What secret compartments?” was the surprised response. Jim showed her duplicates of the ones that had so fascinated us in our family’s secretary since childhooBK>Removing one of them, lo and behold, he discovered carefully folded sheets of paper in neatly-penned script. She excitedly dashed off with it and we never did learn — was it something written by Beatrix? Most likely.Poets have been singing the Lake District’s praises for centuries, yet its varied scenery continues to surprise travellers. We never expected it to be as large, varied or so mountainous.

It abounds in pastoral, lush green fields and stone fences, with Friesian cows and sheep scattered across the hillsides as though placed by artists.

There are golf courses, excellent stream and lake fishing, sailing, pony- trekking and hill-climbing to occupy your time — and add perfect sea beaches close by at places like Grange over Sands and Seascale, plus music festivals and little theatre in countless villages.

And those villages, abloom with roses, dahlias and tuberous begonias are something else . . . nearly all deserve a lingering look.

But first explore the countryside driving through Borrowdale Valley, up Honister Pass and down past Buttermere Lake where heather turns Colorado-like peaks purple. Atop the pass a sign says “Engage Lower Gear” and as you begin to descend, an ominous notice proclaims: “You Have Been Warned.”

Would that there were more Beatrix Potters in the world. So determined to save this beautiful area from over development, she bought farms put up for sale by their owners when their future seemed threatened.

It all started quite simply, buying the farm across from her own. Over the years, the number of farms she purchased with money from her books rose to 14, all eventually willed to the National Trust.

It’s at one of them, Yew Tree Farm in the village of Coniston, that many scenes were filmed. Purchased by Beatrix to save it from developers in 1930, that property was the stand-in for her actual home at Hill Top Farm. Today it’s a popular bed and breakfast.

Eventually she owned 4,000 acres. Today the National Trust has 91 hill farms and the Herdwick Sheep she introduced onto her farm now number 25,000.

This is the area to linger over an old-time ploughman’s lunch in a pub with personality . . . hearty home-made soup, farmer’s bread and Cheddar cheese.

Drive over narrow Wrynose Pass and surrounding stone-walled lanes. Go off ten miles in any direction and expect the landscape to change dramatically from pastoral valleys and tranquil lakeshore to wild moorland and challenging slopes. Variety is the keywordThere<$> are great places to stay. We chose 400-acre Armathwaite Hall on Bassenthwaite Lake near Keswick and the Langdate Chase Hotel, Windermere. Both were formerly private estates now converted into super- posh lakeside resort hotels with elegantly panelled interiors and a wealth of antiques.

The region certainly owes her a debt of gratitude. Her devotion to conservation allows visitors to gaze out over a beautiful unspoiled landscape preserved thanks to the foresight of this generous woman.

In addition to the current film, an earlier production entitled Peter Rabbit And The Tales of Beatrix Potter is also available on video and DVD.

It was an unusual English-made John Brabourne-Richard Goodwin Production released by MGM combining travel scenery, ballet and lilting music that had adults and children queuing up all over Britain.

Elaborately costumed members of Britain’s prestigious Royal Ballet are masked to duplicate Miss Potter’s animal sketches and acting in pantomime on location in the Lake District.

We almost hesitate mentioning the word ballet for fear of erroneously frightening off those who consider it stuffy. Who could imagine frog Jeremy Fisher being stuffy, especially when he’s picnicking with Two Bad Mice in a lovely glen near Lake Windermere?

“I normally don’t like ballet, but I’ve already seen that movie twice,” confided one man as charmed by the magic mood of that film as we were[obox] Next week: Not too far down the road, we visit James Herriot and his Yorkshire Dales country of All Creatures Great And Small.

Beatrix Potter country is full of appeal