Rhythm and Poetry
The films of Margaret Tait

5 November, 2018
– 30 November, 2018
BFI Southbank

“A unique and underrated filmmaker, nobody like her” – Ali Smith, Luxonline

Born on Armistice Day 1918 on Orkney, Margaret Tait went to school (and university) in Edinburgh, but always returned to the family home in Kirkwall. After service as a doctor in World War Two, she studied film at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. Returning to Scotland in the early 1950s she made over 30 distinctive films, most self-funded and shot on 16mm. In her 70s she made her only feature, Blue Black Permanent (produced by the BFI), the first by a woman in Scotland. She often quoted García Lorca’s phrase ‘stalking the image’ to define her philosophy and method – the idea that if you look at an object close enough it will speak its nature. On her centenary, we offer you the chance to discover and enjoy Tait’s unique mix of image, sound, rhythm and poetry.

– Peter Todd


Programme


5 November, 6.10pm
Film Poems
+ discussion with writer Anna Coatman, writer So Mayer, academic Lucy Reynolds and season curator Peter Todd
BFI
Tickets here

This programmes includes Three Portrait Sketches (1951), The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo (1955) – Tait’s reading of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem set to her images, and Hugh MacDiarmid – A Portrait (1964). We also screen A Portrait of Ga (1952), a stunning film about Tait’s mother, and Colour Poems (1974), a poem started in words and finished in images. Plus Where I Am Is Here (1964), which shows the winter streets of Edinburgh – a beautiful contrast with Tait’s elemental masterpiece Aerial (1974).

5 November, 8.45pm
Experimenta Presents: Cross-generation Dialogue: The Margaret Tait Award
+ Q&A with directors Kate Davis, Sarah Forrest and Duncan Marquiss
BFI

Tickets here
Supported by Glasgow Film Festival, LUX Scotland and Creative Scotland, the Margaret Tait Award was founded in 2010 to support experimental and innovative artists working with film and the moving image. In this programme, we present the eclectic and fascinating works produced by previous winners (2015-2017) Duncan Marquiss, Kate Davis and Sarah Forrest – each reflecting Tait’s personal, individual approach, and the strength and dynamism of artist filmmaking in Scotland right now.

11 November, 3pm
London Restoration Premiere: Blue Black Permanent
+ intro by writer So Mayer
BFI
Tickets here

This haunting and magical film moves between Edinburgh and Orkney as it tells of a woman’s attempts to come to terms with her mother’s death through her childhood memories. Filled with flashbacks and dream sequences, it’s also a film about islanders’ relationship with the ever-present sea. Tait’s only feature-length film, from her own screenplay, has been newly remastered in 2K by the BFI.

+ Calypso, UK 1955. Dir Margaret Tait. 4min
Tait’s earliest hand-painted work

13 November, 8.30pm
Land Makar
+ intro by season curator Peter Todd
BFI
Tickets here
Land Makar (1981) is a portrait of Tait’s farming neighbour Mary Graham Sinclair – a poet (‘makar’) of the land – as we follow her through the seasons. Alongside this, we screen two short films: The Drift Back (1956), tracing a family’s return to the Orkney island of Wyre, and Caora Mor: The Big Sheep (1966), which echoes the harsh Highland Clearances of 1810-1820, and how ‘handed-down memories still affect people.’

30 November, 6.10pm
Places of Work
+ intro by season curator Peter Todd
BFI
Tickets here
On the Mountain (1974) offers visions of Rose Street in Edinburgh, where Tait lived, recording and preserving the changes (between 1956 and 1974) with a transformation from black-and-white to colour film. Garden Pieces (1998) is a triptych garden portrait with both live action and hand-drawn images. Finally, Place of Work (1976) and Tailpiece (1976) give lyrical mediations on Tait’s Orkney family home.


In collaboration with
Margaret Tait 100
Coordinated by LUX Scotland, University of Stirling, and Pier Arts Centre.

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