Two new films get their world premiere on Arran
The world premiere of two new films exploring people’s relationship with the sea was staged last Friday on Arran.
One of the films, by Ed Webb-Ingall, was shot on the island and features members of the community speaking about the No Take Zone and the south Arran MPA.
And he was back on Arran to meet the cast for the premiere of his new film: I walk there every day, but never saw it that way. The second film, collectively titled Shore: How We See The Sea, was shot in Wester Ross by Margaret Salmond. Titled Chladach, it takes a very different look at the coastal community there.
Taking place in collaboration with COAST and Regional Screen Scotland, the launch event last Friday saw the films premiere in the mobile Screen Machine in Brodick. There were also storytelling sessions with Local Voices, the screening of feature documentary Chasing Coral and handson activities encouraging all ages to become citizen marine scientists, exploring rockpools and taking a microscopic look at the sea and its inhabitants.
Ed’s film began with conversations with people from across a diverse range of Arran communities – a retired couple, children, a novelist, people from COAST conservationists cleaning a beach – and those from much further afield, including a marine biologist, trawlers, creelers and legal professionals with a focus on water rights.
The aim of his video is not to resolve anything, but to provide a trigger to ask further questions and continue the conversations seen happening on screen, to understand the role and impact of MPAs for those people who live near them and work with them.
Ed seeks to understand the various relationships that exist between different people making use of, and living with, the sea and to ask such questions as, ‘Who does the sea belong to?’, ‘How do you use the sea?’ and ‘How do you protect the sea?’.