Movies: Scottish Documentary Institute

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...

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...

A filmmaker goes on a personal journey of discovery after an old letter reveals her grandfather's secret life....

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...

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...

Soon after her ‘big break’, Italian actress Nadya Cazan disappeared. Ottica Zero follows Nadya from her rejection of the monetary-based system to find an alternative way of living. It is a journey which takes us from Rome to Venus, where social innov...

Work. Eat. Sleep. And back to work. For a long time skippers in the North East of Scotland could not find locals to work on their fishing vessels. That was until Filipino fishermen started coming to town for work. Both nationalities strive to shorten...

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....

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...

How has science impacted on our perception of God?...

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

Fitting explores the relationship between the director, an amputee, and her prosthetist, by their contrasting experiences during the making of a prosthetic leg. It asks what it means for to create an extension to someone else’s body, and the impact t...

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....

At a unique Edinburgh bakery, a community of workers with learning disabilities makes a variety of organic breads for daily delivery to local shops and cafés....

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

This rare and intimate portrait explores a young woman’s perspective about living with albinism – a condition which has often made her an outsider – who is determined to lead a normal life....

In the Suburbs of a Scottish Town, the life of a family quietly revolves around one of their sons’ passion for football. 13 year old Darren plays youth football for a professional club but his annual ‘Review Night’ is approaching and the family are u...

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

An exploration of the power of music and words, looking at a blues musician recovering from a stroke....