Watch Accidental Anarchist online now

“In life, if you change reality in one single space, you’re changing the world.”

The BAFTA nominated feature length documentary Accidental Anarchist is now available to watch online.

Carne Ross was a government highflyer. A career diplomat who believed Western Democracy could save us all. But working inside the system he came to see its failures, deceits and ulterior motives. He felt at first hand the corruption of power. After the Iraq war Carne became disillusioned, quit his job and started searching for answers. This film traces his journey across the globe as he tries to find an answer to the question so many people today are asking themselves – isn’t there a better way? 
For Carne there is. Anarchism offers a solution to the brutalities of Capitalism and the dishonesties of Democracy.

Glasgow Film Festival screens Arcadia

Coming to cinema screens in Glasgow, Paul Wright's Arcadia- a poetic and provocative journey into British rural lands.   Created from 100 years of archive footage from the British Film Institute, and scored by Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp) Arcadia is set to mesmerise audiences. 

See it on the big screen:

Sunday 25th February 20:55 GFT

Monday 26th February 10:45 GFT

Tickets here

Arcadia.jpg

Arcadia screens at BFI London Film Festival

Arcadia.jpg

Scouring 100 years of footage from the BFI National Archive, BAFTA®-winner Paul Wright constructs an exhilarating study of Britain’s shifting – and contradictory – relationship to the land. Wright (For Those in Peril) crafts a dense poetic essay of wonder, hope, horror and decay – drawing on inspiration from The Wicker Man to Winstanley. Through an intoxicating array of material, we follow an unnamed protagonist from the future as she travels through the metaphorical ‘seasons’: Spring’s romantic agricultural idyll long gone; Summer’s innocence of a village fête side-by-side with dark earthy folk rituals and eruptions of Britain’s Pagan past; Autumn’s abandonment of the land, the emergence of urbanisation and the creation of new towns; and Winter’s political turmoil, extremism and division, as nature reacts with violent storms. Set to a grand, expressive score from Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp), Wright’s captivating film essay was conceived before Brexit, but it’s impossible not to see the film through the prism of it.

Arcadia will screen on Sunday 8th and Wednesday 11th of October.

Tickets available here 

Stop All the Clocks...

Cut off the telephone...

And tune into a fascinating hour with the poet of our times WH Auden.  

Saturday 30th September 2017, BBC2 9pm

WH AUDEN_TX.jpg

Thirty years after his BBC film The Auden Landscape, director Adam Low returns to the poet and his work.

Following surges of popularity - from featuring in Four Weddings And A Funeral to being the poet New Yorkers turned to after 9/11 - Low reveals how Auden’s poetry helps us to better understand the 21st century and the tumultuous political climate in which we now live.

Why does the poet - who began as the golden boy of the 1930s and ended up as the craggy-faced laureate we never had - have a greater hold on our imaginations than ever before? Writers Alan Bennett, Polly Clark, Alexander McCall Smith and Richard Curtis and poets James Fenton and Paul Muldoon share their passion for Auden, and celebrate the potent, moving impact of his work.

During his lifetime, Auden was often an outsider. A gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in Britain, he became an American citizen from 1946 and his reputation in Britain suffered disastrously from his decision to leave England in 1939 and to stay in America throughout the Second World War.

However, the popularity of Auden’s work has increased. A poet who coupled technical skill and emotional honesty and was able to engage simultaneously with the everyday and the universal; perhaps this is the reason he has remained relevant.

His particular combination of humanity and scepticism seems to appeal more and more to this generation, one surrounded by political uncertainty and assailed by anxiety about the future. This film probes the peculiar hold that this angry young man of the 1930s still has on our individual psyches.

Safe Place, Gilded Balloon at the Rose Theatre

Hopscotch Films

presents

Safe Place

at the Gilded Balloon at the  Rose Theatre (Studio)  midday, 13-28th August

Martine is a well-known feminist.  She’s written a newspaper article about how she feels she should offer shelter to a homeless person.  At four in the morning Rowan bangs on her door and Martine gives her a bed for the night. But Rowan is not what she seems, the political becomes the personal and Martine is in for a bumpy ride.

A timely drama exploring the tricky relationship between trans rights and feminism.

Coming Oot! A Fabulous History of Gay Scotland on BBC2

BBC2 are showing 'Coming Oot! A Fabulous History of Gay Scotland' on Monday 7th August as part of its Gay Britannia series of programmes marking the 50th anniversary of The Sexual Offences Act. The act decriminalised sex between men in England and Wales but Scots would have to wait a further decade for the law to change. This programme celebrates the men and women who brought about a revolution in Scottish society to make it one of the most gay friendly countries in the world. 

BBC Storyville screens Accidental Anarchist

Look out for Accidental Anarchist on the small screen on Sunday 23rd July, BBC4 Storyville, 21:50. 

Find out how a high-flying diplomat and Middle East adviser lost his faith in western democracy and is exploring a new way in this Guardian interview. 

UK Premiere: Accidental Anarchist at Sheffield

Accidental Anarchist is having its UK premiere at Sheffield doc fest on June 13th at 12pm. After 14 years at the highest levels of the British Foreign Service, Carne Ross resigned over his country's lies about the Iraq war. He embarked on an extraordinary search for new forms of social and political organisation in America, Europe and, most remarkably, Syria. An inspiring journey into the possibilities of a better society.

For more information and tickets see Sheffield Doc/Fest website.

Brian Cox's Russia

Hopscotch is excited to announce our new 2 part documentary Brian Cox's Russia! Catch it on BBC2 Scotland Tuesday 18th and 25th April. 

Directed by Stephen Bennett 

Marking a hundred years since the Russian revolution, Hollywood actor Brian Cox travels to Russia to discover stories of Scots who made this vast country their own. 

Brian first spent time in Russia during the communist era. Brian taught theatre students at Moscow Arts Theatre for a scheme called Raising the Curtain. His time there gave Brian a life long passion for the country and now he travels back to meet the students and see the dramatic changes. 

Brian revisits the turbulent times of Russian history including the 1917 revolution, the Stalinist purges and the siege of Leningrad which created surprising bonds between our two countries. 

The series also covers three hundred years of shared history between Russia and Scotland, from the mercenary who helped shape Peter the Great's army, to the Scottish industrialist who introduced football to St Petersburg. It also celebrates the poetry of Lermontov and his 'Yearning' for the Scottish Highlands as well as the Russian passion for Robert Burns. 

Watch the trailer here.