Sunday Shorts

Enjoy two films about childhood play in our afternoon short film screening.

Margaret Tait’s On the Mountain (1973, 35 min) explores the changing pace of life on a single street in Edinburgh. Made on Edinburgh’s Rose Street, the film juxtaposes material from an early black and white film made in 1956, with a later colour film of the same street. This fascinating ‘film within a film’, explores how the street changed from being a place of overcrowded tenements with children playing in the road, into a pedestrian precinct with trendy boutiques and blocks of offices.

Ben Rivers’ Ah Liberty (2008, 20 min), moves from the city to the wilderness, following the unconventional life of a family growing up outside of society. As they live, work and play on a farm in dramatic beautiful surroundings, there is no particular story. The work conjures a sense of freedom through its beguiling fragments of lives being lived.