Nort Atlantik Drift: A Portrait of Robert Alan Jamieson

Using his collection of poems Nort Atlantik Drift as a point of departure, the film tells an engaging story of one writer’s vision of a changing Shetland — a testament to a past time through told through a contemporary lens. It also stands as a record of a great poet and an alternative way to access contemporary Scottish writing.

Antonia Bird: From EastEnders to Hollywood

Antonia Bird, who died in 2013 aged just 62, was one of the most important British directors of her generation, a powerful political voice who learned her trade in radical theatre and TV soaps, and went on to become the first British woman ever to direct a Hollywood movie. Yet in part because of her gender, her work remains under-recognized and under-valued. This documentary by Scottish director Susan Kemp, executive produced by Mark Cousins, is the first major attempt to put that right. It explores her fight to get her voice heard, to break through the barriers against her gender and her politics, and to bring a radical edge to popular drama. It reveals the secrets behind Antonia’s greatest films – Safe, Priest, Face, Ravenous, Care, Rehab, The Hamburg Cell – and her ground-breaking work on TV series such as EastEnders and Casualty, through intimate interviews with her closest collaborators, including Robert Carlyle, Kate Hardie, Steven Mackintosh, Irvine Welsh and Cousins himself.

In The Light: You Need To Look Squint At History Sometimes To See The Women In It

150 years ago, a group of women entered the University of Edinburgh to study medicine, the first time this had happened anywhere in Britain. Popularly known as the Edinburgh Seven, they studied, they excelled but were prevented from graduating and becoming qualified doctors. All they had asked for was a ‘fair field and no favour’ but they were met with resistance and hostility. This timely documentary skilfully weaves the historical context of 1869 with events in the 21st century, including Carrie Gracie’s recent and well-publicised fight for equal pay, as it follows the fight for recognition and equality, and asks has anything changed?

Writing Ensemble

How important is art as a voice of opposition? And how does state censorship change the content and presentation of that art? These are the complex but fascinating questions at the centre of a new documentary about theatre in the GDR by Scottish filmmaker Susan Kemp.