Film-maker Luke Holland has worked through 500 hours of footage to produce a series about the village he has lived in for ten years.

A Very English Village delves into the life and loves of the people of Ditchling.

From the starting point of a traditional English village located on the edge of the South Downs, the five films take on wider issues such as globalisation, the effects on villages of external commercial, political and economic factors, the dwindling farm industry, fox-hunting and our bias towards youth at the expense of the older generation.

Mr Holland, 56, said: "We are all in contact with each other. No community is isolated and this village is as important a place as anywhere else.

"The village is a window on the world. All the dramas being played out on a global stage are experienced here. That is the case everywhere but especially in a place like Ditchling."

The series has been compiled by filming villagers and events over two and a half years.

Mr Holland received international acclaim for Good Morning Mr Hitler and his film I Was A Slave Labourer was successful in helping secure compensation for more than a million people forced to work under the Nazi regime during the Second World War.

Closer to home, Mr Holland documented the last four and a half years of his brother Peter's life as he battled against the rare bone marrow cancer myeloma in the film More Than A Life.

Mr Holland was raised in an isolated religious community called the Society Of Brothers in Eastern Paraguay.

His family then moved to north London before being "dragged kicking and screaming" to Ditchling, a place he saw as nothing more than a retirement village.

As he settled with his wife Yvonne and their two sons Zefi, 15, and Hugo, 13, he began to see village life as an integral part of Britain and the world and grew to love it.

The first film, Going For The Kill, is screened tomorrow on BBC4, at 9pm and 11.50pm.

It looks at the village's last fox hunt but also explores the pressures on farming and its impact on the countryside.

The second show, Salad Days, follows the Ditchling Players theatre troupe as they put together the comedy musical of the same name.

In Looking For Mr Gill, Holland explores the legacy of former Ditchling resident and artist Eric Gill.

Closing Time follows the closure of the Sandrock Inn in the face of public opposition, while the final film, The Ditchling Ladies, is a montage of conversations from women in their 70s and 80s who are "intelligent, humorous and articulate but don't often get a public stage".

Mr Holland said: "I await with a measure of excitement and apprehension the response of my friends and neighbours.

"What I hope to do is encourage people to ask questions. If people become more interested and curious about the world immediately around them, then I shall be happy."