The Films of Scotland Documentaries - website

Abstract

The Films of Scotland Committee (1938 and 1954-82) produced one hundred and sixty eight documentaries on Scotland and Scottish life; The Films of Scotland Documentaries presents the story of that Committee and the films it produced, illustrating that story with stills and QuickTime movie extracts. The Committee's work dominated Scottish film production for almost thirty years, and the institutional formation and mode of operation of the Committee allows us to pose a series of questions about the relations between film and cultural policy, nationhood, and tourism.

The site is structured into six parts, reached through the menu bar above: History outlines the formation of the Committee and its place in Scottish film production; Timeline chronicles the work of the Committee, the films it produced and the touring seasons it organised; Citizenship examines the Committee's commitment to the national interest, and its relation to the mechanics and legitimation of state authority; The Face of Scotland examines the construction of national identity in one of the earliest films produced by the Committee; The Travelogue maps out the generic conventions of the genre that constituted almost half of the films produced by the second Committee; and Resources includes a full reading list, a filmography with links to all the film extracts featured on the site, and access to SCRAN's searchable database on Scottish culture.