POSTPONED...LIGHTS CAMERA HATCHING!
Eigg's first-ever film festival is all about the birds! It was to have run from 17 to 20 April 2020, but as a result of coronavirus COVID-19 has been postponed. As soon as we have a new date, we will announce it here. Until then, browse through our programme and dream of nesting a while on Eigg to watch, walk and enjoy the birds of our beautiful island.
We share our wonderful island with some incredible birds; what better inspiration for Eigg's first Film Festival. Enjoy films about birdwatchers and bird savers, bird behaviour and migration. Explore our relationship with birds and the impact we have on them. Or simply marvel at their beauty captured on film.
With bird walks, talks, music, sail, great food and drink too. Welcome.
SCROLL DOWN FOR FULL PROGRAMME
EIGG BIRDS AND THEIR HABITATS: BIRD WALK
Walk through Eigg Forestry down to Laig Bay to explore some of the many different bird habitats, including woodland, the Blar Dubh bog, the Giants Footprint lochan, finishing at Laig beach looking out to the Isle of Rum. Hopefully we will see/hear a variety of birds from songbirds to birds of prey, and waders to larger seabirds.
Meet at Eigg Foresty gate, 5 minutes walk past the Swap Shop in the centre of the island. Path is very uneven at times and boggy.
Free, but a donation would be welcome
THE MESSENGER
In ancient times humans looked to the flights and songs of birds to fortell the future. Today once again birds have something to tell us.
Moving from the northern reaches of the Boreal Forest to the base of Mount Ararat in Turkey to the streets of New York, THE MESSENGER brings us face-to-face with the human-made perils that have devastated thrushes, warblers, orioles, tanagers, grosbeaks, and many other airborne music-makers. The story of the mass depletion of songbirds on multiple continents, and about those who are working to turn the tide.
WATCH TRAILER
PICTISH TRAIL
BUBBLE BIRD BATH DJ SET
Join Eigg's very own nature boy The Pictish Trail as he takes us on a DJ powered flight through the world of birds in the Cinemor77 Yurt as it becomes a beacon of birdlife and a light-filled sanctuary for opening night of festival, lit up with avian films and bird projections.
INTRODUCTION TO WILDLIFE SOUND RECORDING WITH PETE SMITH
There are lots of amazing sounds to record on the isle of Eigg. In this workshop professional sound recordist Pete Smith will introduce you to some of the field craft and recording techniques he uses to record sound for nature documentaries and sound libraries. The workshop will start indoors with an introduction to some of the gear Pete uses and will then move outside so we can listen to the environment and try and put some of the techniques into practice.
Please bring your own microphones and recorders if you have them.
JUNIOR WILDLIFE WATCH CLUB
Join in with some Spring fun with bird games, nest building, and of course an Eigg Egg Treasure Hunt!
Meet at Eigg Community Hall, £1 per child, under-8s must be accompanied by an adult.
CHICKEN RUN
Rocky, a rooster, and Ginger, a chicken, decide to escape from a chicken farm when they learn that their owner is plotting to have them killed.
Award-winning animation about a band of hens desperate to escape a life of egg-laying on a chicken farm. With the voices of Mel Gibson, Julia Sawalha and Miranda Richardson.
INTRODUCTION TO SEASHORE BIRDS
Would you like to learn more about the seabirds on our shore? Have a go with binoculars and telescopes to see amazing wildlife up close and personal.
Meet at the stone arch at the pier.
Free, but a donation would be welcome
SHORT FILM SATURDAY
The Art of Flying - It's unknown how thousands of Common Starlings fly in dense swarms or “murmurations” without colliding. Jan IJken's film shows them gather at dusk to perform their amazing air show.
Spindrift - by Selina Wagner with music by MIchael Vass. A girl, more eagle than human, must decide between a life on the wing and her humanity when a stranger arrives on the tide.
BIRDERS - THE CENTRAL PARK EFFECT
Birders follows an eclectic group of birdwatchers through the seasons as they pursue their passion in New York City's Central Park.
The cast of characters includes acclaimed author Jonathan Franzen, a trombone technician, a fashion-averse teenager, and a bird-tour leader who’s recorded every sighting she’s made since the 1940s.
BIRDS OF PASSAGE / LES OISEAUX DE PASSAGE
Cathy’s tenth birthday is tough enough without her eccentric father giving her an egg as a gift along with a warning: “Be there when it is born so the bird recognizes YOU as its mother.” After a game of hide-and-seek goes awry, Cathy’s friend Margaux unknowingly becomes the “mother.” Unfortunately for the bird and Margaux, her parents believe Margaux is unable to care for this pet from her wheelchair.
In French with English subtitles.... but a simple story to follow if subtitles are not your thing!
VOTE FOR - FLY AWAY HOME OR BIRDY
Fly Away Home
Amy moves to Ontario to live with her father after the death of her mother. Her father, an aviation expert, helps Amy lead a flock of orphaned geese south for the winters.
Based on a true story and starring Jeff Daniels and Anna Paquin (1997)
Birdy
After two friends return home from the Vietnam War one becomes mentally unstable and obsesses with becoming a bird.
Starring Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine.
Directed by Alan Parker (1984)
THE BIRDS - LATE NIGHT SCREAMING
When wealthly playgirl Melanie Daniels meets lawyer Mitch Brenner in a San Francisco pet shop, she decides to play a joke on him and deliver a pair of love birds to his home in Bodega Bay on the Californian coast. The town soon finds itself under inexplicable and savage attack by flocks of wild birds, however, and Melanie plays a central role in the community's bid for survival.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1963)
BIRDSONG ID WALK
Come and listen and learn how to recognise different birdsong in the woodlands around Eigg's Community Hall, gardens and woodland. Be enthralled at the beauty of birdsong all around us!
Meet at the Community Hall.
Free, but a donation would be welcome
SHORT FILM SUNDAY
The Art of Flying - It's unknown how thousands of Common Starlings fly in dense swarms or “murmurations” without colliding. Jan IJken's film shows them gather at dusk to perform their amazing air show.
Spindrift - by Selina Wagner with music by MIchael Vass. A girl, more eagle than human, must decide between a life on the wing and her humanity when a stranger arrives on the tide.
THE ISLES WORLD SEABIRDS CALL HOME
Very recent studies have shown that many seabirds are amazing global travellers. For shearwaters, puffins, guillemots and others that breed on the Small Isles, those roamings can include waters from Greenland to South America, Newfoundland to Norway.
Kenny Taylor, whose work on seabirds has featured in several films and books, will reveal some of the ways that Eigg and neighbouring islands are connected to the wider seabird world. He’ll also share tales of puffins in northern Norway, where people at the Arctic Circle celebrate ‘puffin homecoming’ at precisely this time of spring.
THE CORNCRAKE AND THE CROFT
A 1977 BBC Bristol production for The World About Us series captures a vanished world of crofting in the Outer Hebrides. Written and narrated by Finlay J. Macdonald a native Gaelic speaker from Harris.
ALBATROSS
Albatross tells the environmental tragedy of ocean plastic pollution and destruction of beautiful life on Midway Island in the Pacific.
Warning: Albatross contains images that some people may find distressing.
SPECIAL FILM EVENT
FOR LOVERS OF THE HEAD, HEART AND HAND
For lovers of the head, heart and hand. Details of this special event will be announced at our opening night film The Messenger on Friday 17th April
JENNY STURGEON IN CONCERT
Jenny Sturgeon's music is rich with imagery and her songs are bound together by common threads of folklore, nature and the connection people have with the wild.
She also writes and performs with the critically acclaimed alt-folk band Salt House and collaborated on the bird and migration inspired project, Northern Flyway with Inge Thomson.
SHORE BIRD WALK
An easy walk following the shore around Galmisdale Bay over to Shell beach, where we will see a variety of interesting shorebirds, ducks, seals and other marine wildlife.
Meet at the stone arch at the pier.
Free, but a donation would be welcome
SHORT FILM MONDAY
The Art of Flying - It's unknown how thousands of Common Starlings fly in dense swarms or “murmurations” without colliding. Jan IJken's film shows them gather at dusk to perform their amazing air show.
Bird - by Eleanor Mortimer. Based on a real woman's experience of species dysphoria: the experience of feeling your body is of the wrong species.
CINEMATOGRAPHY AND SOUND : HOW BIRDS ARE CAPTURED IN FILM
Talk by Jim Manthorpe and Pete Smith
Find out how professional wildlife cameraman Jim Manthorpe and sound recordist Pete Smith capture the mysterious and beautiful world of birds on film.
BIRD OF PREY - THE STORY OF THE RAREST EAGLE ON EARTH
World-renowned wildlife cinematographer, Neil Rettig, embarks on the most challenging assignment of his career: to find and film the rarest eagle on the planet.
An expertly woven tale with stunning cinematography, Bird of Prey journeys deep into the vanishing world of the Great Philippine Eagle and an inspiring group of people determined to save the world's most critically endangered eagle from extinction.
THE EAGLE HUNTRESS
THE EAGLE HUNTRESS follows Aisholpan, a 13-year-old girl, as she trains to become the first female in twelve generations of her Kazakh family to become an eagle hunter, and rises to the pinnacle of a tradition that has been handed down from father to son for centuries.
With narration and subtitles in English.
BIRD SAIL
See Eigg's birds and coastline from a sea-faring perspective on the yacht Selkie. Wind direction depending, you'll sail into Sound between Eigg and Muck where the current attracts birds looking for food. Then back along the south-west coast of Eigg and the little islets south of Grulin.
BirdSail is not included in the price of the four-day festival pass.
NEST
Weave your own story
Made by Catherine Davis and Pascal Carr
Brought to you by CineMor77
OUR AMAZING CINEMA... IN A YURT!
CineMor77's custom-built cinema yurt offers a really special film experience. With cushions and bean bags for seats it makes a friendly and cosy space for children and adults to enjoy a special day, or take some time out from any event or festival.
EIGG ESSENTIALS
Buy a four-day festival pass and see and do everything... or just buy tickets for the things you want.
Four-day pass £40
Individual films and events: from free to £10, with concessions for low-waged or children.
To ensure a seat, please book for all events, including free ones.
EIGG FILM FESTIVAL IS SUPPORTED BY
