The Rebel Landscapes Programme.
Rebel Landscapes is a journey into Scottish folklore, tradition and landscape, explored through a programme of carefully curated, archival 16mm film and specially commissioned live soundtracks played by four artists loosely working within the folk music idiom.
The original Rebel Landscapes event premiered in Edinburgh in 2011 to a sell-out audience, and spurred on by this positive response, Screen Bandita decided to undertake the touring of the programme to the geographical areas central to these archival films. In essence taking these historical documents back to the communities and settings that originated them.
The short film selection is drawn from the Scottish Screen Archive’s extensive 16mm print collection and explores themes relating specifically to folklore: local traditions and customs, dances, crafts, fishing, crofting all feature, as does the landscape. Further to the unquestionable beauty of Scottish vistas, Screen Bandita wanted to represent through their curation the reverse and the reality: the brutality of natural processes and the trials faced by the rural dwellers who struggled to draw their livelihood from the land.
Rebel Landscapes is a ‘tip of the hat’ to folklore in all of its many manifestations, but crucially it is a celebration of the forgotten faces and unspoken lives of ‘ordinary’ people, whose existences and ways now appear alien, distant and utterly extraordinary. It is an opportunity for a contemporary audience to bring their enthusiasm to the continuation of the strong, vibrant legacy of Scottish folklore, archival film and the rebellious, rambunctious music of the people.
The live musical scores have been created specifically in response to the moving image by contemporary folk musicians Wounded Knee, Hanna Tuulikki and Rob St John with Tom Western, who will be performing thoughtful and engaging pieces to films Eriskay: A Poem of Remote Lives, 1934, The Crofters of Wester Ross, 1939, and Isles of the West, 1939.
Rebel Landscapes event dates:
21.09.13 Clachan Church, Applecross
23.09.13 Uig Community Hall, Lewis
26.09.13 Carinish Hall, North Uist
28.09.13 Eriskay Hall
Doors 7pm.
Tickets £5 on the door.