Scottish Documentary Blog

• Documentary ONLY: Hot Docs and their new cinema
  Hot Docs has an amazing and magical pull as a documentary festival that brings together filmmakers from all around the world – but more importantly, year after year, Hot Docs develops new ways of increasing their local audience. This year, they offered free screenings to students and anyone above 60, creating the most challenging, yet welcoming audience one […]
• Bridging the Gap – in progress: Polaris
  Reports from the production of this year's Bridging the Gap short documentaries, part 4 For a long time, skippers in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire could not find locals to work on their fishing vessels. That was the reality until Filipino fishermen started coming to town. Now they crew most of the boats, but they have to deal with the vast sea and the enor […]
• Bridging the Gap – in progress: In Search of the Wallaby
  Reports from the production of this year's Bridging the Gap short documentaries, part 3 The Isle of Islay, Scotland. Human population: 3,457. Sheep population: 20,000 (or thereabouts). Wallaby population: 1 (deceased)? We have come to Islay with one intention – to solve the mystery of the wallaby. A wallaby is a small kangaroo more often associated with […]
• Poets of Protest: "You need to get out fast and now!"
  There is something very enticing about filming poets. Here are these characters, reflective and questioning by nature, living through a truly historic time of change in the Middle East.  The idea for the documentary series Poets of Protest came after I had been commissioned by Reel Festivals to make three short films during their poetry festival in Beirut in […]