“Where I Am is Here: Margaret Tait at 100.” February 20, 2019
Portrait of Ga
Programmed by Sarah Neely and Matt Lloyd
One of Scotland’s most innovative and stridently independent filmmakers, Margaret Tait (1918–1999) was relatively unknown during her lifetime, but recent years have seen a more widespread acknowledgement of her significance across several areas of the arts in Scotland: film, art, poetry.
This programme, part of a wider series of screenings and events marking the centenary of Tait’s birth, draws from the body of work that Tait referred to as her “film poems.” Shot in the two places Tait lived and worked for most of her life — Edinburgh and her birthplace of Orkney, one of Scotland’s most northerly isles — these films capture the people and places Tait knew with great intimacy, searching out often-overlooked details to unveil the mystery residing within the everyday.
Three Portrait Sketches | UK 1951 | 10 min. 16mm
Portrait of Ga | UK 1952 | 5 min. 16mm
Where I Am is Here | UK 1964 | 35 min. 16mm
Aerial | UK 1974 | 4 min. 16mm
Colour Poems | UK 1974 | 12 min. 16mm
Tailpiece | UK 1976 | 10 min. 16mm