CLICK HERE TO ADD YOUR EVENT

CinemARC: The Rugged Island

Hosted at the ARC in collaboration with HippFest, Scotland’s silent film festival, join us for this special presentation of Jenny Gilbertson’s The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric from 1933.

CinemARC: The Rugged Island

About CinemARC: The Rugged Island

Come along to this silent film screening with new live score by Inge Thomson and Catriona Macdonald. The Rugged Island is an extraordinary film directed by Jenny Gilbertson and loaned by the National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive.

Afterwards, join us for a panel discussion with performers Inge Thomson and Catriona MacDonald, alongside Dr Shona Main and Professor Sarah Neely, experts on the work of Jenny Gilbertson.

Schedule

18:15 – 18:30 – Doors open, drinks on arrival

18:30 – 19:30 – Screening and performance of The Rugged Island

19:30 – 19:45 – Break

19:45 – 20:30 – Post-screening discussion

About the Rugged Island

The Rugged Island is a beautiful ‘story documentary’ made by pioneering Scottish filmmaker Jenny Gilbertson showing life, love and work in Shetland’s rural crofting communities.

Jenny’s husband-to-be plays Johnny: a young man torn between his duty to home and his love for Enga, with the promise of a new life in Australia. This tender and beautiful dramatisation of Shetland life surpasses the bounds of both fiction and non-fiction filmmaking.

HippFest commissioned one of Scotland’s most in-demand composer producers Inge Thomson to create a new live score for this remarkable film. The premiere at HippFest 2024 was met with a rapturous response. Thomson, herself from one of Scotland’s most remote crofting communities, brought in multi award winning Shetland fiddler Catriona Macdonald, and between them they make a soundtrack both ancient and modern.

About Inge Thomson

Inge Thomson is an award-winning musician who has been creating music for over 30 years as a composer, producer, lyricist, multi-instrumentalist and performer. Although best known as a long-term collaborator with The Karine Polwart Trio, in her own right Inge creates large scale multi-media works, produces content for radio and film soundtrack, performs and records in solo capacity and in cross-disciplinary collaborations including projects with scientists, visual artists, animators, theatre makers and textile artists. Recent high profile commissions include BBC Radio 3 Slow Radio piece Fair Winds (2022) and the 2021 BBC Na Trads Award nominated, Wild Edges.

About Catriona Macdonald

Catriona Macdonald is a proud bearer of one of the world's great fiddle traditions, that of the Shetland Isles. Catriona at once embodies the strength and spirit of her heritage with the freshness and diversity of a thoroughly modern performer and composer. Her superb playing and great charisma have established her a worldwide reputation as both a solo artist, and as a founder member of Scottish fiddle band Blazin' Fiddles and International string group String Sisters. She is currently a Senior Lecturer and Degree Programme Director for the BA in Folk and Traditional Music course based at Newcastle University.

About Shona Main

Shona Main is a writer and filmmaker whose doctoral research looked at Jenny Gilbertson's quietly radical ethical approach when living and filming with Shetland crofters in the 1930s and Inuit of Arctic Canada in the 1970s. Her films include Clavel (2014), a portrait of the Shetland crofter James Robert Sinclair, "The tent shall stand when the palace shall fall”: The tent that Essie built (2018) with the Highland Traveller Essie Stewart; and Wildie and Lalla (2021), a film about Jessie Saxby's love for her daughter, made with Catriona Macdonald and Angelica Kroeger.

About Sarah Neely

Sarah Neely is a writer, producer and researcher, working primarily in the areas of artists’ moving image and film archives. She is a Professor in Film and Visual Culture at the University of Glasgow. Her publications include Between Categories: The Films of Margaret Tait - Portraits, Poetry, Sound and Place (Peter Lang, 2016), and as editor, Margaret Tait: Poems, Stories and Writings (Carcanet, 2012), and Margaret Tait, Personae (LUX, 2020). She has also written about Jenny Gilbertson’s work, including a chapter situating her work in relation to other Scottish women filmmakers (EUP, 2014), and an article on the significance of her film, The Rugged Island, within the context of early sound film production in Scotland (Music, Sound and the Moving Image, 2018).

About HippFest

HippFest (est’d 2011) is Scotland’s first and only festival of silent film with live music, centred in and inspired by Scotland’s oldest cinema, featuring exceptional screenings, commissions, workshops and community events. HippFest undertakes year-round activity and has established a reputation for excellence in commissioning new music and touring.

For more information about HippFest, visit: www.hippfest.co.uk
---
Image credit: Screening of The Rugged Island © Douglas Robertson, courtesy of Soundhouse Winter Festival.

Screening material courtesy of National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive.

This event is free, but ticketed.

You will be permitted to one drink on arrival, while stocks last.

If you have any access requirements, please contact ARCEngage@Glasgow.ac.uk.

Sponsored Links

Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust
Hilton Glasgow
Hilton Glasgow
Link
Glasgow City Council
King Pins
Fayre Play

Other Events at Mazumdar Shaw Advanced Research Centre

CinemARC: Borderzone III

17th October 2025

This screening will include the Sundance Award Winning film by Scottish filmmaker Theo Panagopolous, The Flowers Stand Silently Witnessing.

READ MORE

Drive the Future: A Virtual Reality Experience

Selected dates between 18th October 2025 - 20th October 2025

Step into virtual reality at the University of Glasgow and navigate the simulated city with their cutting-edge technology!

READ MORE

CinemARC: Sinners

30th October 2025

It's Halloween at the ARC and CinemaARC are showing a terrifying flick that you'll be dying to sink your teeth into on Thursday 30th October!

READ MORE

CinemARC: The Social Network

19th November 2025

CinemaARC presents this special screening of Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher's 2010 hit, The Social Network.

READ MORE

Sponsored Links

Open Pass Scotland
Media Shop
City Of Glasgow Chorus
City Sightseeing Glasgow
Renfrewshire Council
East Renfrewshire Culture
ATG
Hostelworld

Similar events you might like...

Take 2: Family-Friendly Films

Take 2: Family-Friendly Films

Selected dates between 4th January 2025 - 27th December 2025

Everything from kid-friendly classics to family foreign language and the latest blockbuster releases, Take 2 screenings at Glasgow Film Theatre will keep even the littlest film fans entertained!

READ MORE
EatFilm at Sloans

EatFilm at Sloans

Selected dates between 7th January 2025 - 18th November 2025

Your favourite movie night is back! Enjoy a line-up of feel-good films and movie classics plus a meal, popcorn and drink, all set up in the stunning Grand Ballroom at Sloans!

READ MORE
The Lotus Club: Documentary Series

The Lotus Club: Documentary Series

Selected dates between 26th February 2025 - 26th November 2025

The Lotus Club regularly screens documentaries, curated by two Glasgow-based Japanese journalists, at the National Library of Scotland at Kelvin Hall.

READ MORE
A Kick Up the Arts with Nicola Meighan

A Kick Up the Arts with Nicola Meighan

Selected dates between 11th September 2025 - 11th December 2025

Join writer and BBC broadcaster Nicola Meighan for a late lunch live recording of her Scottish arts and culture podcast, A Kick Up The Arts, at The Stand Glasgow!

READ MORE
Guillermo del Toro Season

Guillermo del Toro Season

Selected dates between 1st October 2025 - 7th November 2025

This October, the Grosvenor Picture Theatre are celebrating the release of Frankenstein with a weekly Guillermo Del Toro Retrospective Season!

READ MORE
TRON: ARES

TRON: ARES

10th October 2025 - 23rd October 2025

Buckle up and get lost in the most immersive TRON film yet when it comes to IMAX at Glasgow Science Centre!

READ MORE
Led Zeppelin: Fulldome Experience

Led Zeppelin: Fulldome Experience

Selected dates between 10th October 2025 - 17th November 2025

Get ready to rock the dome! Don't miss your chance to experience Led Zeppelin like never before in the Planetarium at Glasgow Science Centre!

READ MORE
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon

Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon

Selected dates between 12th October 2025 - 26th October 2025

Join Glasgow Science Centre for the Pink Floyd fulldome experience which sets 10 tracks from The Dark Side of the Moon to mesmeric 360° visuals in their digital Planetarium!

READ MORE
Free Screening and Q&A - Ocean With David Attenborough

Free Screening and Q&A - Ocean With David Attenborough

13th October 2025

The Marine Conservation Society are hosting a free screening of Ocean with David Attenborough - a stunning documentary showing us the wonder and vitality of the ocean.

READ MORE

Find other events in Glasgow

Sponsored Links

Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust
Hilton Glasgow
Hilton Glasgow
Link
Glasgow City Council
King Pins
Fayre Play
Open Pass Scotland
Media Shop
City Of Glasgow Chorus
City Sightseeing Glasgow
Renfrewshire Council
East Renfrewshire Culture
ATG
Hostelworld

Popular Events

Spooktacular
Glasgow's biggest Halloween experience returns this October, running from 3rd - 26th October, at a brand new location that promises to take the fright factor up a notch!
GlasGHOST: Glasgow’s Biggest Indoor Family Halloween Experience!
Get ready for a spook-tacular adventure this October when GlasGHOST, a thrilling, family-friendly Halloween event like no other, comes to the SEC Glasgow!
GlasGLOW
This Halloween season, the city we love turns 850 and GlasGLOW are throwing one GLOW-rious celebration with an all-new 60-minute blockbuster light and sound show at the Botanic Gardens!
Flight Club Glasgow Halloween Brunch Weekender
Flight Club Glasgow, the lively Social Darts and cocktail bar, is serving up a bottomless Halloween brunch this October that's so good it's scary!
Glasgow Summer Sessions: Pitbull
Pitbull IS BACK! Mr Worldwide will be headlining Glasgow Summer Sessions at Bellahouston Park on Wednesday 1st July!

Popular Listings

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum King's Theatre Glasgow King Tut's Wah Wah Hut O2 Academy Glasgow SEC Armadillo Theatre Royal Glasgow The Pavilion Theatre Glasgow The Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall The OVO Hydro