Margaret Tait Movies

A set of three 'film poems' composed around the theme of the garden - the central one featuring hand scratched animated drawings. Margaret Tait...

In 1990s Edinburgh, Barbara Thorburn reflects on memories of her poet mother, Greta, and her tragic death.

Another early experiment in portraiture from Tait. In filming her mother she asks the wider question of how much the camera can reveal of the person.

'Titles within the film are: Numen of the Boughs, Old Boots, Speed Bonny Boat, Lapping Water, Incense, Aha, Brave New World, Things, Terra Firma. A...

Poles, presumably to be used to carry electricity wires, are seen being carried over a wintry landscape by helicopter in Sandwick, Orkney.

A film interpretation of the poem 'The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo' by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Margaret Tait speaks the poem throughout the film.

"Touches on elemental images; air, water, (and snow), earth and fire (and smoke) all come into it." - MT

A short piece of film recording general views of Edinburgh's Royal Mile in the 1950s.

"Starting with a six-line script which just noted down a kind of event to occur, and recur, my aim was to construct a film with its own logic, its...

Starting from its source, this film tells the story of the Orquil Burn, Orkney.

General shots of Edinburgh City Centre taken by film-maker Margaret Tait, focussing on the Royal Mile, Holyrood House and Princes Street Gardens.

Perugia and its Italian University for foreign students.

Every time the task of drawing a circle is performed, it results in a unique shape, a slightly different 'version' than the previous and next...

A palindrome created on film. Features interaction between a couple with the recurring line 'Madam I'm Adam'.

Drawing on a wealth of unseen archival material and unpublished notebooks, the film weaves a complex and personal portrait of Margaret’s life,...

A portrait of poet Hugh MacDiarmid.

Hand painted directly onto film stock by Margaret Tait, this film features animated dancing figures, accompanied by authentic calypso music.

In Aurand’s signature diaristic form, roses in bloom, farm animals, Orkney landscapes, and scenes of the late filmmaker Margaret Tait having...

The first in a series of films for the Rural Cinema Scheme in the Orkneys, it records the return to the island of Wyre of Neil Flaws, a farmer, and...

A series of interiors exploring the work of various businesses - presumably in Kirkwall.