Project Detail

Prince of Muck

Synopsis

In PRINCE OF MUCK retired patriarch Lawrence MacEwen is beginning to live out his final days. As Laird of the Isle of Muck, it has been his mission in life to preserve the fragile society on this Inner Hebridean island, so it may pass to his son, Colin, and future generations. His Sisyphean efforts seem to have worked… but at what cost to him?

Directed by first time feature director Cindy Jansen, PRINCE OF MUCK is a beautifully realised, cinematic documentary about a man struggling to accept he no longer controls his son, his life, nor the isle he so loves. Dutch Director Jansen brings a cool, seemingly detached ‘outside eye’ to a classic Scottish scenario, as a Laird surveys his Life and Land. Jansen's carefully constructed narrative gives space to inter-generational tensions to slow-burn, dramatic effect.

PRINCE OF MUCK starts off as a portrait of an eccentric man, but slowly rises above his family’s history on this particular island, to become a more universal story, a classical rendition of interdependence, a simultaneously transient, yet deep, experience, of a man slowly accepting the eternity that beckons him and, we ultimately recognise, awaits us all.

Details

Year
2021
Type of project
Features
Running time
78 min
Format
Digital
Director
Cindy Jansen 1st Feature
Producer
Grant Keir, Rene Goossens, Annemiek van Gorp
Editor
Katharina Wartena, David Arthur
Screenwriter
Cindy Jansen
Director of Photography
Julian Schwanitz
Sound
Robert McDougall
Composer
David McAulay
Principal cast
Lawrence MacEwen (as himself)

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

Faction North Ltd / de Productie

Sales Company

Grant Keir

Producer
Faction North Ltd
1 (T2 f3) Summerhall
Edinburgh EH9 1PL

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.

Children playing in Gaza. Joy of Joys

Director: Jonathan Glazer

Year: 2026

JOY OF JOYS is a short documentary about the recording sessions for War Child Records' HELP(2) at Abbey Road Studios, directed by Jonathan Glazer and devised by Mica Levi and Glazer. Children in London film themselves and the musicians, including Olivia Rodrigo, Arctic Monkeys, Damon Albarn, Cameron Winter, Fontaines DC and Pulp. While children in Gaza Ukraine, Sudan and Yemen film themselves and their surroundings. The documentary interweaves these layers across continents and backgrounds to show a universal innocence and the joy of childhood itself. Glazer and Levi describe the film as being “by children, for children”. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Smiling man facing camera with a group of people in nun costumes and Outrage placards behind Queer Edward II

Director: Theo Rollason

Year: 2026

Spring 1991: queer life is under renewed attack in Britain, and filmmaker Derek Jarman is adapting Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II into a radical protest film. Drawing on extraordinary never-before-seen footage shot by Seamus McGarvey on Jarman’s set, QUEER EDWARD 11 is about the refusal to separate art from life, politics from pleasure. Official Selection Venice Film Festival 2026 Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Young man with dark hair and black jacket stands with his eyes closed in a field of common reed. Between Us and the World

Director: Wallace Minchong Li

Year: 2026

European archival footage from the 1950s documents the life of indigenous, nomadic Sahrawi children and youth in Western Sahara / Morocco. Seventy years later, local young people from Laayoune (El Aaiún) revisit locations that may have appeared in the footage. From ocean to desert to oasis, under trembling starlight, they share their thoughts on life, dreams, and utopia as they search for an uncertain upstream. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026