Movies: Scottish Documentary Institute

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 wher...

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 n...

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 a...

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

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...

When a Palestinian filmmaker based in Scotland unearths a rarely-seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wild flowers, he decides to reclaim the footage. This tender film essay questions the role of image-making as a tool of both testimony and viol...

Following a politically engaged schoolboy from Easterhouse, Scotland in the lead-up to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum....

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....

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...

In her documentary, the Scottish-Syrian director tries to reconcile the two worlds in her head: her fond memories of visiting relatives in Damascus and what has happened in Syria since then. She confronts her cousin, who fled from there, with her rec...

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 portrait of America as told by three old men fishing on a frozen lake....

A young Ugandan goat herder dreams of being able to read and write but must oppose his elders....

A look at the day to day job of the Tooth Fairy....

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....

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....

An Essex church community react to the arrival of a transvestite....

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....

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

Mentiras is a visually stunning but profoundly unsettling journey through the world’s largest city. Based on one man’s confession to human rights crimes committed with the backing of the Mexican government – it is the story of a troubled conscience a...