A mother takes her daughter camping in an attempt to reconnect in this short film. There’s clearly a history here, as the daughter is furious to the point of tears, and lashes out with an unkind comment. On the other hand, the mother seems to be trying to force some connection without regard for her…
Quietly poignant short documentary about the filmmaker reconnecting with her Syrian cousin. Laura is a Syrian Scot who spent her holidays visiting family in Syria. The film includes old family movies of their trips, with Laura giddily filming everything. The country is so beautiful. A clear open blue sky, verdant hills covered in wildflowers, its…
Yet another documentary that makes me ask, why didn’t we learn about this in school? If you’ve read many of my reviews, you’ll remember me harking on about how British civil rights movements are not taught in schools, about how we know far more about American civil rights and anti-racist movements than we do our…
We Know A Better Word Than Happy is a short documentary on kids playing in The Children’s Wood, on the North Kelvin Meadow, right here in Glasgow’s Maryhill. The Wood and the Meadow are activist-established community green spaces that have been running for years. The documentary lets kids describe in their own words what they…
Really interesting short documentary on James Bushe, who fought for and won the right to become the first HIV positive commercial pilot. When I saw the synopsis, I was thinking, so this will be looking back at his case in the 90s, right? 2020 this fucking happened. What?! What the fuck would even be the…
A meditative, dialogueless, short film about a woman with a disability wild swimming in a loch. The title, First Step Swim is kind of a directive mantra, if you wanna do it, just do it, but also refers to the fact the woman is missing the lower part of her right leg. The film has…
Ooft! Powerful short film. Go Home is about a burnt-out Polish Scot immigration officer doing a processing interview with a young Palestinian woman applying for asylum here. I loved this film for so many reasons. First, it blows out the water the myth that ‘we don’t have racism here’ in Scotland. This is one we…