Current Issue

The Skinny Current Issue

The cover of the March 2024 issue of The Skinny.

In March, as we prepare for second winter and the spring of deception, Scotland welcomes an array of film festivals to our cinemas, creating a space which helps us dream of a brighter future. We’re celebrating with a Film Special, which opens with a conversation with activist film collective Invisible Women, whose programming showcases the work of women who might otherwise fall through the archival cracks. They’re presenting a range of programmes and retrospectives this month, with a series of shorts by Mexican feminist film collective Cine Mujer at Glasgow Short Film Festival, and a retrospective entitled Wild Flower, Flaming Star at Glasgow Film Festival, celebrating the prolific Mexican actress Dolores del Río.

We examine the visionary programming in Scottish film which makes space for community-building and radical change, looking at the work of Take One Action, Glasgow Short Film Festival and Berwick Film & Arts Media Festival (Berwick for this issue being treated as part of Scotland along 15th Century border lines, naturally). The curators behind Følkløric, a two-part strand of shorts exploring traditional and contemporary visions of folklore, also at GSFF, share the pub discussions that inspired them to develop the programme. We talk to Romanian director Radu Jude, whose Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, a satire of late stage capitalist work culture, is also screening at GFF. Finally, we look forward to HippFest, the annual celebration of silent film in Bo’ness’s historical Hippodrome. 

On the back of the Misogyny in Music report published by the UK government in January, Tallah has spoken to women and non-binary people who work in the Scottish music industry to find out more about the barriers they face on a daily basis. It’s a depressing read. While editing it, I found myself worrying about our safeguarding responsibilities in allowing the interviewees to voice very basic criticisms of their working environments. I also wonder which of the Scottish music industry’s various maniacs is going to send me abuse about it either in person or online, as has happened when we’ve discussed misogyny and abuse before. This is how the silencing operates. 

Music also talks to Empress Of, aka ​​Lorely Rodriguez, about her provocative fourth studio album For Your Consideration. A pair of virtuosic fiddle players, Pekka Kuusisto and Aidan O'Rourke, are interviewed by someone with a Grade 5 in violin, ahead of their Scottish Chamber Orchestra performances as part of Time and Tides. 

Intersections examines the recent student-led campaigns organising against Scottish universities’ institutional complicity and investment in fossil fuels and the arms trade. One writer takes a walk in the Pentlands and finds solace in the exploration of nature and geological time. 

Comedy’s got its second biggest month of the Scottish cultural calendar, looking forward to the arrival of Jessica Fostekew’s show Mettle, and the return of Glasgow International Comedy Festival. We talk to Eleanor Morton and Jin Hao Li about the work in progress shows they’re bringing to the programme. Books talks to Lewis-based writer K Patrick about their debut poetry collection Three Births, and Theatre talks to Fronteiras Theatre Lab's Flavia D'Avila about La Niña Barro, the daring physical theatre work which arrives on an Edinburgh stage this month. 

Art celebrates a pair of big birthdays, as Collective and Fruitmarket mark their 40th and 50th respectively. Collective’s programme begins with the Scottish premier of Elisa Giardina Papa’s Sicilian-set film work “U Scantu”: A Disorderly Tale, drawing on histories of witchcraft, mythology and oral culture. Fruitmarket present a solo show from Martin Boyce, one of his most ambitious exhibitions to date and his first with the gallery since 1999. 

We close the magazine circling back to comedy, with The Skinny on… Liam Withnail, who hates La La Land, loves plotting to cook Laurence Fox in a witch’s cauldron.