Across the Waters
Synopsis
Details
- Year
- 2005
- Type of project
- Shorts
- Running time
- 28 mins
- Format
- DigiBeta
- Director
-
Sana Bilgrami
- Producer
- Noe Mendelle, Mary Margaret Murray
- Co-Producer
- Noe Mendelle, Mary Margaret Murray
- Editor
- Sitar Rose
- Director of Photography
- John MacKinnon
- Sound
- Marcelo de Oliveira
- Composer
- Phamie Gow
Genre
Categories
Production Status
Production Company
Pilton Video
30 Ferry Road AvenueEdinburgh EH4 4BA, Scotland
UK
T +44 (0)13 1343 1151
info@piltonvideo.org
Sales Company
Sana Bilgrami
6/6 Viewforth TerraceEdinburgh EH10 4LH, Scotland
UK
T +44 (0)7788 825 868
Page updates
This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.
See also
You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.
Across the Waters
Director: Sana Bilgrami
Year: 2005
In 1955, a young girl travelled from a village in Pakistan to the remote and beautiful Scottish island of Lewis. When, fifty years later, her granddaughter is leaving the island, three generations of Pakistani Muslim women and an old Gaelic islander tell us a story of exile and belonging.
Tree Fellers
Director: Sana Bilgrami
Year: 2006
Tree Fellers is the story of the 900 Belizean lumberjacks who in 1942 left the tropical rainforests of British Honduras to help Britain fight fascism by felling trees in Scotland. Sam (93), Eric (87) and Amos (86) were among those who stayed on after the war to make new lives in a country where, for better or worse, the colour of their skin marked them out. Newly discovered archive, long-cherished memories and a last reunion are intertwined in this lyrical and moving documentary testament.
The Solway
Director: Eamon Bourke
Year: 2026
Filmmaker Eamon Bourke lost his mother, Sue, when he was three and has no memory of her. When his father decides to sell the remote Lake District home where she died, Eamon returns with his camera to document the house and its clearing. Among Sue’s belongings - diaries, poems, photographs and tapes - he discovers a box of damaged cassette recordings. After painstakingly repairing them, he uncovers something extraordinary: his mother’s voice. Through these intimate audio diaries, Sue speaks candidly about motherhood, sings to her children, and captures fleeting family moments Eamon never knew. One final tape records her describing the onset of hepatitis, days before she fell into a coma and died in 1983. Another, more haunting still, features three-year-old Eamon calling out to his unconscious mother in hospital, in a desperate attempt to bring her back. As Eamon pieces together this archive, he confronts the enduring impact of early loss, speaking with his father and sisters while retracing the emotional landscape of his childhood. Set against the vast beauty of the Lake District, a deeply personal exploration of grief, memory and love - an attempt to recover what was lost, and to finally say goodbye.