Scottish Documentary Institute

A Scottish-Palestinian filmmaker examines rare archive footage of Palestinian flowers and questions how it relates to the world of today.

A palpably rendered audiovisual essay draws together the distinct sensibilities of filmmakers Peter Mettler (The End of Time) and Emma Davie (I am Breathing) and philosopher David Abram (The Spell of the Sensuous) to forge a path into the places where humans and animals meet.

Cunenk grew up as a girl trapped in a boy’s body. She could not wait to leave her village and become a performer.

A remote and wild island on the west coast of Scotland is home to a small group of people that live in deep connection with the land, the sea and the weather. For different reasons, they left their city life to escape their inner demons and to live as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible.

Breathing is about the thin space between life and death. 34-year-old Neil Platt plans his own funeral, muses about the meaning of life and the impossibility of terminating a mobile phone contract. With 5 months left to live, and paralyzed from the neck down by Motor Neurone Disease, he ponders how to communicate about his life in a letter for his baby son. How can he anticipate what he might want to know about his father in a future he can only imagine?

This rare and intimate portrait explores a young woman’s perspective about living with albinism – a condition which has often made her an outsider – who is determined to lead a normal life.

Bill Drummond, once the most notorious man in pop music, now travels around the world baking cakes, building beds and shining shoes as part of a twelve year World Tour which is his final art project. This film follows him as he does his work in India and the United States.

A woman grieving for the loss of her husband finds solace in the world of psychic mediums.

The changing face of a pebble beach on the coast of the English channel serves as a backdrop to compare the long history of sea rescue with the present day plight of migrants crossing the sea.

A unique point-of-view insight into a day in the life of Jimmy McIntosh, a wheelchair user living with cerebral palsy who on a daily basis fights for the rights of others.

Untung and Nesti really love their 6 year old son who has autism. Their daily life becomes more challenging because both of their parents are disabled, but their love and passion is truly heartwarming.

Soon after her ‘big break’, Italian actress Nadya Cazan disappeared. Ottica Zero follows Nadya from her rejection of the monetary-based system to find an alternative way of living. It is a journey which takes us from Rome to Venus, where social innovator and futurist, Jacques Fresco, proposes a solution.

Work. Eat. Sleep. And back to work. For a long time skippers in the North East of Scotland could not find locals to work on their fishing vessels. That was until Filipino fishermen started coming to town for work. Both nationalities strive to shorten the distance between two very different worlds.

In post-revolution Libya, a group of women are brought together by one dream: to play football for their nation. But as the country descends into civil war and the utopian hopes of the “Arab Spring” begin to fade, can they realise their dream? And is there even a country left to play for? Freedom Fields is a film about hope and sacrifice in a land where dreams seem a luxury. Through the eyes of these accidental activists we see the reality of a country in transition, where the personal stories of love, struggle and aspirations collide with History.

A filmmaker explores a neurological condition she has been diagnosed with and its relationship with an incident in her past.

MIEZI KUMI (TEN MONTHS) is a short documentary of the love between Zacharia Mutai, his family and the last two northern white rhinos, which he has to take care of for ten months in a year.

Livingston skateboard park became internationally legendary. Forty years on, the park is no longer a favourite. That is until a group of school girls, passionate about skateboarding, step in.

As a family from a politically and physically divided island, Meray and her father developed extremely opposite views to each other. She travels from Scotland back to her childhood home - to the garden where she once had nightmares of the conflict. Now it's blossoming with fruit trees that her father grows, acting as the conversational middle ground for the deeper problems of the relationship. As the debates about power dynamics in the house and on the island grow in parallel, she needs to understand her father's experiences and find the courage to tell him that she always sought his validation. Meray felt oppressed by her father and the state in north Cyprus, and finally wants to express herself within her family, and the Cyprus that she once escaped.

Sean uses the Piano to navigate life on the Autistic Spectrum. As he is drawn into new musical collaborations he must learn to balance his enthusiasm and compulsive energy with understanding and compromise, redefining his perspective in the process.

Our bodies store memories. The body does not forget. A childhood in Damascus, OCD, the revolution, falling in love with a woman. My body remembers, it keeps the trauma. And after all the losses, I had to start listening to my body.