Iorram (Boat Song) (2021)

The first cinema documentary entirely in Scots Gaelic, Iorram (Boat Song) is a lyrical portrait of the fishing community in Scotland's Outer Hebrides, past and present. Director Alastair Cole takes the audience on an immersive journey into the heart of a thousand-year-old community, blending observational footage shot over the past three years with archive sound recordings of stories and songs from the mid-20thcentury, set to an original score by acclaimed folk musician Aidan O'Rourke. At the core of the film is an extraordinary trove of sound archive, recorded by pioneering Scottish ethnographers, who visited the Outer Hebrides to capture the hardship and romance of life lived in precarious balance with the sea. These newly restored recordings preserve an oral history of lore and legends, tall tales and tragedies, passed down through generations of Gaelic speakers reaching back hundreds of years.

Director Alastair Cole is an award-winning Edinburgh-based documentary filmmaker, originally from New Zealand. Iorram continues his filmmaking about the often subtle, intimate and increasingly political dynamics of language and society. His previous films include the feature documentary Colours of the Alphabet, and three short documentaries. Colours of the Alphabet was released at the 2016 Glasgow Film Festival, and went on to screen at 40+ international film festivals, was broadcast in 30 languages across 52 countries internationally, as well as winning multiple awards including a nomination for a Grierson Award 2016. His previous short films have been broadcast in 27 countries and screened at 50+ festivals around the world, including at Cannes Critics Week in 2011 and 2012. Alastair is also a senior lecturer in Film Practice at New ...