Gaelic Culture: Folk Film Gathering
This year's programme brings together Gaelic home movies, contemporary Celtic sounds and international stories of community activism
Folk Film Gathering is an initiative led by music-cum-film collective Transgressive North. It celebrates intersections between folk film, traditional music and storytelling, with a keen eye on indigenous narratives and concerns. Gaelic nations feature prominently, with Jack Archer and Rob MacNeacail’s film Sailm nan Daoine (Psalms Of The People) receiving another outing. Also featured, Faodail (Found) reflects on a lack of Hebridean-born perspectives in cinema.
Until 1979, the Hebrides had only been seen on film through the incomer’s eye, but Faodail’s vintage footage broke new ground, celebrating and recording Western Isles daily life. Now redigitised, 25 hours of 8mm home movies will blend with live music from Hebridean artists, including accordionist Pàdruig Morrison who has recently returned from the International Pan Celtic Festival’s New Song competition.
Where Faodail exhibits the impact of creeping anglicisation on rural Gaeldom, with lyric and melody at the forefront, Dennis Harvey and Lars Lovén’s Celtic Utopia examines how Irish traditions continue to inform the contemporary. In counterpoint with a reckoning over colonialism, the screening begins with live tunes from David Lennon while the film showcases The Deadlians, Lankum and The Mary Wallopers.
Las Damas Azules bridges the Atlantic, shoring up connections between Scotland and Peru. Here, women are front and centre, exploring their role in community movements and action. Presented in collaboration with Resonating Moving Images, a discussion will be led by Sara Guerrero, Ximena Oñate and Verónica Zela Valdez to look at their own experience and reflect on a solidarity with our own homegrown movements.
Folk Film Gathering, various venues, Edinburgh, until Sunday 10 May.