Scottish Documentary Institute

Anne Wallace once had a dream to help Glasgow's street working women. Soon after, a double-decker bus materialised along with the Ministry of Salt and Light.

How has science impacted on our perception of God?

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 neck down by Motor Neurone Disease, he ponders how to communicate about his life in a letter for his baby son. How can he anticipate what he might want to know about his father in a future he can only imagine?

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 this has on both maker and amputee. The film demystifies this unfamiliar space and experience for the viewer, and questioning stereotyping and prejudice widely seen within our society's consideration of body image.

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 violence when connected to entanglements between people and the land.

April loves music, dancing, trampolining and swimming, but with sensory difficulties faces challenges in the search for independence as her 16th birthday approaches.

Alan Sinclair aspires to be a human popsicle, literally. For this film is about the weird and wacky world of cryonics. Instead of burial or cremation get yourself put in a freezer, wait a few hundred years, get defrosted and off you go. Just keep your fingers crossed there's not a power cut.

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 and the United States.

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.

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.

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 uncertain if he will remain signed. Mum, Yvonne, struggles with her son’s future and the impact that it will have on her family’s ritual of supporting him play every Sunday, their time, energy and countless hours standing in rain, snow and sunshine, and beyond. A beautiful and funny portrait between a mother and her teenage son.

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 as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible.

An intimate insight into the lives of deaf people, navigating a society built for the 'fully abled'.

A young filmmaker tries to get a better understanding of her unconventional mother.

In post-revolution Libya, a group of women are brought together by one dream: to play football for their nation. But as the country descends into civil war and the utopian hopes of the “Arab Spring” begin to fade, can they realise their dream? And is there even a country left to play for? Freedom Fields is a film about hope and sacrifice in a land where dreams seem a luxury. Through the eyes of these accidental activists we see the reality of a country in transition, where the personal stories of love, struggle and aspirations collide with History.

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 and the rupturing of official lies.

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 the distance between two very different worlds.

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

Through the interspecies gaze we observe one of the most ancient and highly honoured dog breeds, the Saluki. Guiding us in love, preparing us in death and transforming us in life.

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 where humans and animals meet.