The contribution of Scots and Scotland to cinema’s first century was a notable one on many different fronts.

In the earliest days of the medium, Thomas Edison worked closely with a Scottish technician, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson (also the inventor of the close-up) on his pioneering Kinetoscope camera of 1891. Coming right up to date, the last decade has seen Scotland emerging as an important centre of contemporary animation. In between, emblems and icons of Scottish film history have ranged from Brigadoon and Whisky Galore! to Trainspotting and Braveheart, Bill Douglas’s Scottish Childhood trilogy to Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher. We’ve seen Laurel and Hardy in Bonnie Scotland, Errol Flynn in The Master of Ballantrae, Spencer Tracy as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Orson Welles as Macbeth, and more recently Robert Carlyle as a James Bond baddie and Ewan McGregor in Star Wars. Scotland is also widely credited with having largely invented the modern British documentary, though the groundbreaking work of John Grierson.  

All aspects of film-making, production and distribution in Scotland today are supported and co-ordinated by the national agency Scottish Screen. Video work, with its links on the one hand to the buoyant visual arts and new media sectors, and on the other to a strong Scottish stable of independent production companies, is also a steadily expanding field, with a network of local film and video workshops active across both urban and rural areas.

A detailed overview of the Scottish film sector will follow as soon as possible - contributions are invited from practitioners working in this sector, please contact Tim Doling at [email protected]

In the meantime make direct contact with organisations and individuals working in this sector through our extensive database of KEY CONTACTS.