When Marc Rome studied art in Carlisle he could only stay in his home town for a year.

It’s something he’s immensely glad about. “The best thing Carlisle did for me was not provide a degree course,” he reflects.

If it there had been three-year degree here he might not have lived in Switzerland, in the same town as many rich and famous people – and become director of an international film festival, which visits Carlisle in September.

Nor might he have met his partner Anne.

Marc is 51 and originally from Currock, and attended Carlisle College of Art before it was absorbed into the University of Cumbria.

So fine art degrees were not on offer here. After a foundation year he moved to Cardiff for his degree.

Marc met Anne in the Welsh capital. And while there he first got to visit Switzerland. That was what led to his post as director of the Swiss arts film festival Gstaadfilm.

Another friend in Cardiff, Greg Holt, had been invited to take part in an art competition in Gstaad, a town in south-west Switzerland and a popular ski resort. Marc went over to visit him.

“I met a Swiss guy called Haarold Reichenbach, who owned a gallery and liked my work. So I started exhibiting with him.”

Marc returned to Wales and worked for a time as a public art consultant, but continued exhibiting work in Switzerland. “I was backwards and forwards to Switzerland for a number of years. I finally moved there.”

Gstaad is in a German-speaking part of the country and is home to some of the world’s rich and famous.

“Chamonix is where celebrities go to be seen,” Marc explains. “Gstaad is where they go not to be seen.

“Elizabeth Taylor had a chalet next door to Michael Jackson. Bernie Ecclestone has a place there, for his collection of Ferraris.

“You would see Arnold Schwarzenegger and Quentin Tarantino.”

Current and former residents include Julie Andrews, Johnny Hallyday and Peter Sellers.

Other uber-rich people were members of the Liebherr family of the earth-moving equipment company. And there was a Mrs Engelhorn, whose husband was one of the pioneers of the contraceptive pill.

Regular visitors have included Madonna, Prince Charles. Princess Diana and David Bowie

John Travolta and Ursula Andress were among those who came there for holidays and Paris Hilton would come to attend parties. “Ursula Andress had drastic plastic surgery,” Marc recalls.

Gstaad wasn’t just home to many high-profile people. It was also literally high. Switzerland is Europe’s most mountainous country and Gstaad sits at 1,105 metres above sea level. To put it in context, Carlisle is 29 metres above sea level.

And it was somewhere where Marc noted a different attitude to art. “The audience is much better, much more receptive.

“They’ll think of buying some artwork rather than buying a third TV for the house. There’s a different mindset.

“Roger Moore was a long-time friend of Gstaad and used to pop into the gallery. He was very nice.”

Not all visitors were so nice. Rich Russian visitors were often rude. “They were always asking for a discount, and more often than not they had no artistic taste.

“I remember one Russian came in with this glamorous blonde girl – they invariably had glamorous blondes with them – and he kept saying: ‘Deesh count’.”

It took Marc a moment or two to realise he was saying: “Discount.” So he referred the Russian to the supermarket down the road.

“He was furious. He didn’t come back.”

The immense wealth was demonstrated when he saw an entire shop front being removed. “They moved a Lamborghini in and put these two beautiful shop dummies on either side of it. Then they put the shop front back in.

“The car had nothing to do with the shop – it was a clothes store. The Lamborghini was just part of the display.”

But not everyone has the kind of money that some of Gstaad’s celebrities have. So gallery owner Haarold Reichenbach and a doctor friend had the idea for a film festival with free admission. “It was something for the person who just lives there, not the ones who go to parties at £200 a ticket.”

It was to be dedicated to short films made by people with an artistic background, so as an artist Marc was asked to direct it.

The films are all short ones, lasting no longer than 10 minutes, and animations aren’t allowed.

It is held every other year and he says: “The submissions from filmmakers have grown massively.

“We can have 3,000 entries – there are always plenty from the UK – and we can accept a maximum of 25. The standard is very high.

“When Barack Obama relaxed the sanctions we were getting more and more good films from Iran. But since Donald Trump that has dried up.”

Part of its growth is down to its greater exposure in recent years. That greater exposure leads to a visit to Carlisle later this year.

“After a while we thought it was time to leave the mountains and take it on tour. We held it in Dublin in 2015 and in 2017 we went to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.

“This August it’s going to Leipzig and it will be showing at the Warwick Bazaar in Carlisle on Thursday, September 12.

“We’re going to return to Gstaad for 2021. It’s always free wherever we are.”

The best film is awarded not a Golden Globe but a “Golden Cow”, carved from wood by a Gstaad farmer. The best by a filmmaker under 25 receives a “Golden Calf”.

Marc has made films himself and one took him to Zambia, portraying the unusual form of public transport in the capital, Lusaka. “We made one called ‘A Day in the Life of a Zamcabber’.

“A Zamcabber is a guy with a wheelbarrow who for 5p will take you as far as a mile.”

The Lozi people of western Zambia regard themselves as a separate nation and while Marc was there they were in the process of choosing a new king. Many international news crews had come for the event but when nothing happened they lost interest and left.

“Then one night we got a call from a prince, asking if we would like to film the coronation.

“We drove for 18 hours to get there. We had the only footage of the coronation in the world.”

Marc and Anne and their three children now live in County Laois in the Republic of Ireland. “We were a long time in Switzerland, but Ireland is a great base.”

His mother Susan still lives in Carlisle and the family visit regularly. They live in the depths of the Irish countryside so his children are always surprised coming to a city – even one as small as Carlisle.

“The idea of being able to order a takeaway – it’s eyes wide open.”

And he’ll always be grateful for the lack of higher education the city offered when he was growing up.

“If there had been degree courses then, maybe I’d never have left.

“And I wouldn’t have met Anne.”