The full programme has been announced for Sea Change Festival 2025 - Scotland’s only annual celebration of female filmmaking talent. Taking place from the 19 to 21 September on the beautiful and remote Hebridean island of Tiree (over 80 miles away from the nearest permanent cinema), highlights across the three day showcase of women behind the camera includes:
A special opening night screening of The Rugged Isle: A Shetland Lyric, a poignant 1934 ‘story documentary’ about crofting life by the pioneering Scottish filmmaker Jenny Gilbertson. Accompanied live by a new music score from award-winning Fair Isle multi-instrumentalist Inge Thomson, with Shetland-born Catriona Macdonald - considered one of the world's leading traditional fiddle players. (Originally commissioned by HippFest Silent Film Festival).
Amy Liptrot, author of the phenomenally successful The Outrun, will attend the festival to introduce a screening of the book’s big screen adaptation starring two-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan. Set in an otherworldly Orkney, The Outrun is a brutally honest drama about addiction and recovery, strength and survival, mental health and the ability of the sea, the land and of people to restore life and renew hope.
Shallow Grave star Kerry Fox will introduce a closing night screening of Fanny and Elvis, in conversation with Allison Gardner, CEO of Glasgow Film. Writer-director Kay Mellor's first film is an odd-couple romantic comedy, starring Fox as a middle-class romantic novelist and Ray Winstone as a tough car salesman who meet when her clapped-out VW Beetle. Kerry will also introduce a screening of Jane Campion’s classic 1990 biopic An Angel At My Table and lead a special industry workshop on working with actors.
Screenings top new UK independent films from female talent including Daisy-May Hudson’s Lollipop, a gripping drama about a mother’s desperate fight to reclaim her children after a prison sentence derails her life and Motherboard, BAFTA-winner Victoria Mapplebeck’s epic look at solo motherhood, shot across 6 iPhones and 20 years.
A focus on women in Scottish animation, with leading Scots animators Vicki Haworth and Orkney-borne Selina Wagner visiting the festival to showcase their award-winning animated shorts and lead hands-on workshops for both adults and young film-fans. Vicki will also be introducing a showing of the family-friendly Danish comedy drama Vitello, on which she was the UK animation director.
Alongside the on screen programme, Sea Change embraces its unique setting to offer daily group sea swims, pilates on the beach, Gaelic-lead walks and a ceilidh dancing class.
The festival takes place at venues across the island including An Talla, community hall, the 19th century Hynish Centre (originally built to house the workers building Skerryvore Lighthouse and Screen Argyll’s screening room in Crossapol.
In the week before the festival, Screen Argyll will host official Sea Change warm-up screenings of some classic films directed by women on the Isles of Seil, Mull and Coll. Following on from the festival dates, Screen Argyll will be touring a programme of Vicki and Selina’s animations to audiences across the Hebrides and Argyll, including showings in the world-famous Screen Machine mobile cinema.
Ahead of the public festival opening on the 19th, a host of leading female and non-binary film industry professionals will arrive on Tiree for an eye-opening and thought-provoking series of conversations around an ever-shifting industry.
Sea Change 2025 Festival passes are on sale now, with tickets for individual screenings going on sale on 8th August. Visit the Screen Argyll website to book.
Sea Change 2025 is run by the Tiree-based Screen Argyll and funded by Screen Scotland, with sponsorship from the Isle of Tiree Distillery. Film Hub Scotland fund the Screen Argyll Network.
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Image credits
Stills from The Outrun and The Rugged Isle: A Shetland Lyric courtesy of Sea Change Festival