Projects in genres: Scottish

Synopsis

When Neil Platt is diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease at the age of 33, he makes the unusual decision to document his final months, not just in a blog (which he painstakingly dictates via frustratingly inaccurate speech recognition software) but by inviting a film crew into the home he shares with his tireless wife Louise and toddler son Oscar. The result is a heartbreaking, funny and tender portrayal of incredible fortitude and love (EIFF).

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Joseph is terminally ill. He spends his days sitting in front of the television, watching as each show comes and goes until one morning something catches his eye. Inspired, Joseph departs from his daily routine to create something he hopes to pass on to his family.

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Commissioned by LUX and Collective Gallery. 'Fib' is the Pictish name for the contemporary Scottish region known as The Kingdom of 'Fife'. It also means a trivial or white lie. Filmed at locations in Fife, the film focuses on two census takers and considers the resulting information and actions as ‘factish’.

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When Madge Elliot complained about the announced closure of her local train station in Hawick, her mother told her to do something about it, and that’s just what she did. It’s Quicker By Hearse The Tale of the Petitioning Housewife, the Protesting Schoolboy and the Campaign Trail Student tells the story of Elliot who, together with her 11-year-old son Kim, Harry Brown the piper and Edinburgh University Railway Society president Bruce McCartney, marched to Downing Street to deliver a petition of 11,768 signatures on 18 December 1968. When final closure was penciled for January 7 1969, Madge and her campaign group continued their protest by posting a coffin on the last train to leave Hawick station and travel to London. The coffin was emblazoned with the words ‘Waverley Line – born 1848 killed 1969’ and was addressed to the then Minister of Transport Richard Marsh. This work investigates how the national changes recommended in the infamous Beeching report, titled The Reshaping of British Railways, impacted Elliot and her local community. Like Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel Waverley (the railway lines namesake), Elliot’s grassroots campaign raised questions of the need for social progress that does not reject the traditions of the past.

Synopsis

When Tom (Stanley Weber), a struggling publisher,discovers his only successful author, Jane, (Karen Gillan), is blocked he knows he has to unblock her or he's finished. With her new found success, she’s become too damn happy and she can't write when she's happy. With the help of his friend Roddy, Tom plans a series of misery inducing events in an effort to make Jane unhappy enough to get her writing again.The only trouble is, the worse he makes her feel, the more he realises he is in love with her...

Synopsis

Dummy Jim is playfully adapted from the little-known journal 'I Cycled Into The Arctic Circle' (1951) by profoundly deaf cyclist James Duthie, who one day set off alone on his bicycle from a village in Scotland, bound for Morocco. How did he end up in the Arctic Circle? Led by deaf actor Samuel Dore on an increasingly bizarre 6000 mile journey, this eccentric road movie mixes documentary, fiction and animation. Killed on the road in '65, the film memorializes a quiet, determined maverick whilst offering an honest insight into his community, with village inhabitants emerging as creative participants and performers.

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Another day unfolds in an anonymous woman’s life, as she cooks and cleans for her uncommunicative husband and sullen grown-up children. Then, late in the afternoon, she has an unusual visitor.

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The Greyness of Autumn follows the life of Danny McGuire, an ostrich living in Scotland. Danny's life suddenly spirals out of control when he loses his job and his girlfriend in the same day.

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A rickshaw driver with bad knees makes brief but powerful encounters with buskers, drunks and potential passengers on his last night in Edinburgh.

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Violet wants magic but she's too scared to take a chance. She can't even bring herself to swap her dull, plain scone for something more indulgent. Until a gift that's altogether too delicious to resist is left on her doorstep, prompting her to embark on a mission into unexpected temptation.

Synopsis

Nevada is the psychological portrait of two lovers who've grown to hate one another. Drawing inspiration from aspects of Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller’s fated marriage, the film is a contemporary experimental study of the journey between sensitivity and war. Commissioned and featuring music by LAU.

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An experimental response to the epic contemporary composition, Prometheus, written by Brian Ferneyhough. Commissioned by The Royal Philharmonic Society as part of their Encore scheme. The film is an intimate physical portrait of two male boxers, and explores themes to do with provocation, endurance, saturation and repetition.