This film is part of Rentals
Blue Black Permanent
Engaging, poetic story of three generations of Scottish women made by artist Margaret Tait.
Director: Margaret Tait
Overview
Margaret Tait's tale of three generations of women in a Scottish family swirls out through a series of interlinking stories and recollections, taking place in Edinburgh and the Orkney Islands. Drawn to the sea, it appears that the grandmother and mother both drowned accidentally, and their unfolding dramas overlap with restrained pathos. Tait's first feature, this film was made when she was 74.
Tait, who died in 1999, trained at the Centro Sperimentale Cinematografia in Rome in the early 1950s and, on returning to her native Scotland, fashioned her own form of understated, Scottish neorealism. Seeing the world through the lens of her surrounding landscape and observing the cycles of nature, she made 16mm films that were acutely poetic yet also direct. She's considered an important early practitioner of experimental film in the UK. The Margaret Tait Award to support experimental and innovative artists working with the moving image was founded in 2009. Blue Black Permanent is now available on BFI Player in a newly remastered presentation.
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