Iorram (Boat Song)
Alastair Cole
Synopsis
The first feature documentary entirely in Scottish Gaelic, IORRAM (BOAT SONG) is an immersive and poetic portrait of life in the Outer Hebrides, as the islands and the language face an uncertain future.
Archive sound recordings of ghostly voices, stories and songs from the last century are mixed with stunning footage of daily life in the islands today, on land and sea, to create a lyrical and playful dialogue between past and present, and between sound and vision, set to an original score composed and performed by award-winning folk musician Aidan O’Rourke.
IORRAM began as an experiment to make a cinematic film entirely composed from archive sound and contemporary moving images. The sound archive at the heart of this project contains over 30,000 pieces of previously untranslated and largely unheard Scottish Gaelic recordings, representing a treasure trove of cultural history and memories which deserve to be heard.
Making documentaries from archive film footage is a long established practice, but there are also vast riches in sound archives around the world, which are gradually being digitized and restored, and represent a valuable resource for filmmakers interested to explore the relationship between past and present, and between the ears and the eyes. If cinema has historically prioritized vision over sound, IORRAM marks an ambitious effort to redress the balance, and provide audiences with a new and deeply satisfying kind of cinematic experience.
Details
- Year
- 2021
- Type of film
- Features
- Running Time
- 96 min
- Format
- 4k digital
- Director
- Alastair Cole
- Producer
- Adam Dawtrey, Alastair Cole
- Executive Producer
- Mary Bell, Mark Thomas, Margaret Mary Murray
- Editor
- Colin Monie
- Director of Photography
- Alastair Cole
- Music
- Aidan O'Rourke
Genre
Production status
Complete
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Last updated 18th September 2020
