Urras Film nan Eileanan Beaga

Small Islands Film Festival 2-3 October 2009

Kathryn Burnett — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:45:07 +0000

Homecoming – South and East

To celebrate Scotland’s ‘Year of Homecoming’ the Small Islands Film Festival 2009 focuses on the theme of ‘home’ and homecoming’ in a packed programme of screenings and discussions of award-winning shorts, documentaries, drama-docs and rare archive films from the world’s island communities. Earlier in the year we explored our interpretation of ‘island homecoming’ from the perspective of ‘North and West’ with our third annual festival event that took place on the Isle of Benbecula, Western Isles, 19-21st June 2009. Details of this are posted below.

Now we wish to continue with our homecoming theme by returning to the island of Islay for our second contribution to this year’s 2009 Homecoming celebrations by staging a further festival event.

Read on for further details of this and previous festival events.

All screenings will take place at Ionad Chaluim Chille Ìle, Gart na Trà, Bogha Mòr, Eilean Ìle / Columba Centre, Bowmore, Islay. The main programme of screenings (Sessions A-D) will be complimented by additional Gaelic related film materials accessible at the Centre’s Library/Learning Resource Room (Session E).

For details of the programme please click here SIFF Full Programme Islay 09 .Please keep checking for further changes/updates.

For details of how to book tickets in advance for the Islay event as well as details for payment please click here SIFF Booking Islay 2009. Highlights include:

From Chile: The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1952) – Director Luis Buñuel’s take on Defoe’s classic tale. Defoe’s story itself is of course based on the true experiences of Fife’s Alexander Selkirk.
Being Rapanui (2007) offers an insider’s perspective on Rapanui, aka Easter Island. Set against endless oceans, monolithic moai, exquisite petroglyphs and oral histories, the mystery of Rapanui is revealed.
From Tasmania: Black Man’s Houses (1992) is a documentary that tells the story of black survival in Tasmania amidst the continuing suppression of history and culture. In doing so, it challenges skin-deep assumptions about Aboriginality today.
From Hawaii: Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawai’ian Nation (1993) This hour-long documentary is a provocative look at a historical event of which few Americans are aware. In mid-January, 1893, armed troops from the U.S.S. Boston landed at Honolulu in support of a treasonous coup d’etat against the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen Lili’uokalani. The event was described by U.S. President Grover Cleveland as “an act of war.”
From Scotland: Gaelic and English features and documentaries on ‘home’ and ‘homecoming’ in Scotland’s islands including Mike Alexander’s Home and Away (1974)
And to kick off our programme, and the ‘South and East’ theme, we screen Powell and Pressburger’s classic I know where I’m going (1945) which offers a narrative of British metropolitan ‘southern-ness’ challenged by the experience of relocating to Argyll’s real and mythic island world and inviting the audience to share in its romance and a ’homecoming’ of her own for English bride-to-be, Joan as she comes to terms with identity, modernity and an appreciation of ‘being’ rather than ‘becoming’.

Small Island Film Festival 19 -21 June 2009

Kathryn Burnett — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:36:00 +0000

Homecoming – North and West

To celebrate Scotland’s ‘Year of Homecoming’ the Small Islands Film Festival 2009 focuses on the theme of ‘home’ and homecoming’ in a packed programme of screenings and discussions of award-winning shorts, documentaries, drama-docs and rare archive films from the world’s island communities ‘North and West’. Our third annual festival event will run on the Isle of Benbecula, Western Isles over the dates 19-21st June 2009. Please note that the main venue is the Screen Machine: Take 2 which will be located outside the Dark Island Hotel, Liniclate. A parallel programme of screenings will also take place in the St Kilda Suite, Dark Island Hotel.

Please refer to full and updated programme, booking details, and highlights features by clicking on 2009 above. Read on for further details of this and previous festival events.

For details of the full programme of screenings and discussion please click here.Smiff Benbecula 2009 Final Screening Schedule v3 (updated 17th June). Please keep checking for further changes/updates.

For details of how to book tickets in advance and register for the June 19-21st festival weekend on Benbecula as well as details for payment please click here: SMIFF Registration Booking 2009 Word format.

Highlights include:

From Nunavut, Canada: the European Premier of Isuma Productions’ Exile (2009) a searing account of loss of home and resilience on a High Arctic island and the Scottish premiere of The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (2007) plus associated rare Scottish archive films by Jenny Gilbertson in the High Arctic and Isobel Wylie Hutchison in Greenland
From Barra and Italy: Tim Neat’s Play Me Something (1989)
From Ireland: a 50th Anniversary screening of Mise Eire (1959) and Ciarin Scott;s Waiting for the Light (2008) on the life and work of its director, Irish film-maker George Morrison
From the Uists and the Western Isles: New island talent in award winning Film G shorts on the Screen Machine ‘big screen’!
From Sweden: ‘Bergman and Fårö Island’, an insight into world stature film-maker, Ingmar, Bergman, and his small island home
From Scotland: Gaelic documentaries on ‘home’ and ‘homecoming’ in Scotland’s islands of the North and West
Live link to Igloolik, Nunavut on film, minority language and culture plus discussions with guest film-makers from Scotland, Ireland and Canada

Islay event screens films of both local and global interest

Kathryn Burnett — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:30:23 +0000

The Small Island Film Festival was welcomed to Islay in October 2008. A series of screenings, discussions and social events took place over the weekend of October 3-5th 2008 to celebrate both Islay’s local film heritage, (including both The Maggie and show-casing more recent local filmmaking) and films from a number of island settings across the globe including the Canadian Arctic Broken Promises and Stolen Spirits of Haida Gwaii and a continued link for the Small Islands Film Festival with film from Ireland including Inis Airc – Bas Oileáin (Inishark – Death of an Island, Deireadh an Áil (The Last of the Blasket People) and Slán An Scéalaí (May the Storyteller Thrive). Other Scottish productions include screenings of Seachd and Orwell: Against the Tide. Further details of screening programme and events can be seen by clicking on 2008 above.

Some images from Islay 2008

Like film? Like islands?

Kathryn Burnett — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Isle of Eriskay 15-17th June 2007

The first film festival dedicated to small islands took place on the Isle of Eriskay in June 2007. The Small Islands Film Trust would like to thank everyone who lent their support and who contributed of their time, energy and creativity to the event. Both visitors and islanders alike came to the event on Eriskay and in the most brilliant of sunshine, took the time to head indoors to the Screen Machine: Take 2 and to Eriskay Community Hall to enjoy the sample of films and documentaries associated in some way with small islands both in Scotland and beyond. Screenings included the work of Orcadian filmmaker Margaret Tait and Werner Kissling’s footage of Eriskay, Doug Eadie’s Sorley MacLean’s Island (1974) and Moore and Shea’s Shepherds of Berneray (19981) as well as Calum Ferguson’s Am Posadh Hiortach (St Kilda Wedding). A number of Irish-Gaelic films were shown including Breton filmmaker Loic Jourdain’s Fear na nOileán, recipient of the Spirit of the Festival, Gold Torc Award of The Celtic Media Festival 2007. The festival also screened films from the Cheju island, South Korea including Red Hunt (Cho Sung Bong) 1998 and Grandmother in the white cotton scarf (Kim Dong-man).

Click on 2007 above for more details of screenings, discussion sessions and events.

Images from Eriskay 2007