Scottish Documentary Institute

Breathing is about the thin space between life and death. 34-year-old Neil Platt plans his own funeral, muses about the meaning of life and the impossibility of terminating a mobile phone contract. With 5 months left to live, and paralyzed from the neck down by Motor Neurone Disease, he ponders how to communicate about his life in a letter for his baby son. How can he anticipate what he might want to know about his father in a future he can only imagine?

A palpably rendered audiovisual essay draws together the distinct sensibilities of filmmakers Peter Mettler (The End of Time) and Emma Davie (I am Breathing) and philosopher David Abram (The Spell of the Sensuous) to forge a path into the places where humans and animals meet.

This rare and intimate portrait explores a young woman’s perspective about living with albinism – a condition which has often made her an outsider – who is determined to lead a normal life.

How has science impacted on our perception of God?

Bill Drummond, once the most notorious man in pop music, now travels around the world baking cakes, building beds and shining shoes as part of a twelve year World Tour which is his final art project. This film follows him as he does his work in India and the United States.

A young Ugandan goat herder dreams of being able to read and write but must oppose his elders.

Anne Wallace once had a dream to help Glasgow's street working women. Soon after, a double-decker bus materialised along with the Ministry of Salt and Light.

Alan Sinclair aspires to be a human popsicle, literally. For this film is about the weird and wacky world of cryonics. Instead of burial or cremation get yourself put in a freezer, wait a few hundred years, get defrosted and off you go. Just keep your fingers crossed there's not a power cut.

Jodie lives and breathes motorcycling. But the road to reaching the top is paved with difficulties, if it wasn't for her dad's unwavering support.

In the Suburbs of a Scottish Town, the life of a family quietly revolves around one of their sons’ passion for football. 13 year old Darren plays youth football for a professional club but his annual ‘Review Night’ is approaching and the family are uncertain if he will remain signed. Mum, Yvonne, struggles with her son’s future and the impact that it will have on her family’s ritual of supporting him play every Sunday, their time, energy and countless hours standing in rain, snow and sunshine, and beyond. A beautiful and funny portrait between a mother and her teenage son.

How do you love in isolation? And live in absence? A woman and her daughter strive to answer these questions after a loved one is suddenly removed from their lives.

At a unique Edinburgh bakery, a community of workers with learning disabilities makes a variety of organic breads for daily delivery to local shops and cafés.

Soon after her ‘big break’, Italian actress Nadya Cazan disappeared. Ottica Zero follows Nadya from her rejection of the monetary-based system to find an alternative way of living. It is a journey which takes us from Rome to Venus, where social innovator and futurist, Jacques Fresco, proposes a solution.

A filmmaker based in Scotland travels to Caracas to investigate claims of a weeping statue of the Virgin Mary.

In post-revolution Libya, a group of women are brought together by one dream: to play football for their nation. But as the country descends into civil war and the utopian hopes of the “Arab Spring” begin to fade, can they realise their dream? And is there even a country left to play for? Freedom Fields is a film about hope and sacrifice in a land where dreams seem a luxury. Through the eyes of these accidental activists we see the reality of a country in transition, where the personal stories of love, struggle and aspirations collide with History.

The true story of a group of factory workers in Scotland who stood up to a military dictatorship in Chile.

Mentiras is a visually stunning but profoundly unsettling journey through the world’s largest city. Based on one man’s confession to human rights crimes committed with the backing of the Mexican government – it is the story of a troubled conscience and the rupturing of official lies.

When a Palestinian filmmaker based in Scotland unearths a rarely-seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wild flowers, he decides to reclaim the footage. This tender film essay questions the role of image-making as a tool of both testimony and violence when connected to entanglements between people and the land.

A look at the array of mysterious, quirky objects received by fashion designer Paul Smith and the effect they have had on his life.

A unique point-of-view insight into a day in the life of Jimmy McIntosh, a wheelchair user living with cerebral palsy who on a daily basis fights for the rights of others.