Bogancloch
Dir: Ben Rivers, 2024, UK, 85 min, Language: English, HIFF classification: 12
Tucked away in one of Scotland’s vast Highland forests, modern-day hermit Jake Williams lives a quiet, solitary life. Bogancloch follows his journey through the changing seasons, capturing moments when others briefly enter his otherwise secluded world. Filmed in textured, grainy 16mm, this documentary is a follow-up to Ben Rivers’ film, Two Years at Sea. The result is a captivating, dreamlike reflection on nature, solitude, music, and one man’s unique way of living. Tha an t-aonaranan Jake Williams san latha an-diugh a fuireach an Bogancloch, ann an coille air a’ Ghàidhealtachd. A bheatha tro na ràithean agus corra uair daoine eile a’ nochdadh a-steach dhan t-saoghal aige. Chaidh a dhèanamh gu mionaideach air film 16mm. Tha an aithris seo a’ leantainn am film aig Ben Rivers Two Years at Sea. Tha e mar bruadar a’ beachdachadh air nàdar, aonranach, ceòl, amhrain agus an dòigh neo àbhaisteach sa bheil an t-aonaranan seo beò.
Winner of New Waves Acuitis Prize at the Festival International du Film de La Roche-sur-Yon.
Boundary Layers / Sreathan Crìche
Dir: Amanda Thompson, UK, 16min
Boundary Layers (16 minutes) is a dual-screen film work and spoken-word essay about nature’s reclamation of the former steelworks at Ravenscraig, Motherwell, closed by Thatcher's government in the 1980s. Let’s start with the mosses, the bryophytes. They’re often the first colonist species to arrive, and it’s thought these mosses are not dissimilar to the first plants that came out of the water onto land, more than four hundred million years ago. Without roots, tiny hairs anchor them to the surfaces of rocks, cement, trees, logs, bricks, anything that they can find, and they pull their nutrition from the atmosphere around them. ’S e obair film sgrìn-dùbailte agus aiste labhairteach a th’ ann an Sreathan Crìche. Tha am film seo mun ath-bhuannachadh le nàdar aig an seann muillin-stàillin Ravenscraig, Tobar na Màthar a chaidh a dhùnadh le riaghaltas Thatcher sna 1990an. Nach tòisich sinn a’ coimhead air na còinneachan, na bryophytes. Glè thric, ‘s iadsan a’ chiad lus-stèadheachail a bhios a’ ruighinn. Thathar den bheachd gu bheil na còinneachan seo coltach ris an fheadhainn a thàinig air tìr bho chionn còrr is 400millean bliadhna. Às aonais freumhan, bidh ribeagan an acrachadh air uachdar chlachan, sameant, craobhan, logichean, brèigean - dad sam bith as urrainn dhaibh a lorg.
The work was part of A Fragile Correspondence, Scotland’s collateral exhibition for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023
