Scottish Film Events: September 2021

Berwick-upon-Tweed might be officially an English town, but it’s disputed territory as far as The Skinny’s film section is concerned, as we see the annual Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival (Berwick venues and online, 10-12 Sep) as very much part of Scotland’s film festival scene. As ever, there’s a rich selection of artists’ moving-image and experimental film on offer, not least in the annual Berwick New Cinema Awards programme, which this year features new work by Fern Silva (Rock Bottom Riser), Ane Hjort Guttu (Manifesto) and Sophia Al-Maria (Tender Point Ruin). Elsewhere you’ll find focuses on Hanoi-based filmmaker and video artist Nguyễn Trinh Thí and a mini-retrospective of work by Sri Lankan artist Rajee Samarasinghe.

The righteous Take One Action film festival (Glasgow, Edinburgh and online, 22-26 Sep) also returns to fight the good fight – and they’re more needed now than ever. With COP26 on the horizon, there’s a distinct environmental focus this year, from festival opener Living Proof – A Climate Story, a brilliant documentary assembled from archive films exploring Scotland’s changing attitude to the natural environment (read more in September's magazine), to Raj Patel’s The Ants and The Grasshopper, and The Last Forest, which blends dreamscapes and reality to portray the Amazonian Yanomami community as they fight to save their land from the threat of gold prospectors. Check out our full TOA preview here.

And don’t forget about the Glasgow Youth Film Festival (GFT, 17-19 Sep). Programmed and co-produced by fresh-faced cinephiles aged 15 to 19 after a summer of mentorship by Glasgow Film, this year’s edition mixes new work like teen musical Everybody's Talking About Jamie and lonely Brit-abroad drama Granada Nights, as well as some older favourites made before any of the programmers were even born. You know, 'ancient' films like Death Becomes Her (1992) and Do the Right Thing (1989). (God I feel old.)

Another of our favourite festivals, Alchemy Film & Arts are back in the real-life realm with their first in-person event since February 2020, with a screening of Mark Lyken’s Táifēng and the Motorway Saint, a feature-length study of three Taiwanese cities and the everyday rituals that play out there during typhoon season. (Heart of Hawick, 8 Sep)

Cinema schedules are also looking lively in the Central Belt. We’re looking forward to the Cinema Rediscovered festival bringing a tour to Scotland that makes a strong argument for 1971 being one of the greatest years for American cinema, with a season of masterpieces from that year that would become key works in the 70s New Hollywood wave screening. Titled 1971: The Year Hollywood Went Independent, the tour features personal, idiosyncratic films of the counterculture like Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop, Alan J. Pakula’s Klute, Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces, Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs Miller and Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show. GFT, Filmhouse and DCA are all screening films from the season, so take a look at their websites for screening dates.

GFT also have a great looking Q&A planned for 8 September, with director Cathy Brady and Kate Dickie joining the cinema for a screening of their striking new film, Wildfire, an intense family drama concerned with the spikey relationship between two sisters. Another one-off to look out for is a screening of the jaw-dropping documentary Epic of Everest, following the Mallory and Irvine Mount Everest expedition. The 1924 masterwork will get the live soundtrack treatment from Stephen Horne in an event in collaboration with Hippodrome Silent Film Festival (DCA, 26 Sep). Take note, GYFF programmers: this is what you call an old movie!