Being in a Place – A Portrait of Margaret Tait

Forum 2023

Margaret Tait once proposed a project to Channel 4 called Heartlandscape, an unrealised landscape portrait of her home region of Orkney. Fowler’s portrait of the Scottish filmmaker and poet takes its bearings from the proposal, although it’s not clear just how closely his ideas cleave to hers. Titles from her project punctuate the film, and a few pages from the proposal flash up on the screen, but they’re one element among many, more jumping off point than framework. Fowler collects, connects and accumulates the nodes through which Tait’s life flowed almost in passing, his restless curiosity and mental agility creating a structure so supple and organic one barely even notices it taking form. There are Tait’s studies in Rome, the vast skies, shimmering waters and shifting shades of green of her homeland, the people she touched, the marks she made on countless pages, her own ravishing footage, her experience of making films as a woman. But there is always also a surplus, like the frost-tinged poppies in a field or the light on the altar of an abandoned church, that could be Fowler or Tait or both; it doesn’t matter. The best portraits of an artist make two sensibilities into one.

by Luke Fowler United Kingdom 2022 English 61’ Colour & Black/White International premiere | Documentary Form

Crew

Director	Luke Fowler
Screenplay	Luke Fowler, Margaret Tait
Cinematography	Luke Fowler, Peter Todd
Editing	Luke Fowler
Music	Lionel Marchetti, Lee Patterson, Donald W. Lindsay
Sound Mixing	Ernest Karel
Sound	Lee Patterson, Luke Fowler, Sarah Neely, Louise Barrington
Producers	Luke Fowler, Sarah Neely

Produced by

Luke Fowler

Sarah Neely

Photos

Luke Fowler

Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1978. He studied printmaking and design and works as a filmmaker and musician. Much of his artistic production is devoted to sound installations. Since 2001, Luke Fowler has made numerous films, primarily documentary works shot on analogue 16mm film.

Filmography

2001 What You See Is Where You’re At; 24 min. 2003 The Way Out; co-directed by Kosten Koper, 33 min. 2006 Pilgrimage from Scattered Points; 45 min. 2008 Bogman Palmjaguar; 30 min. · An Abbeyview Film; 9 min. 2009 Tenement Films; 4 x 3 min. 2011 All Divided Selves; 93 min. 2012 The Poor Stockinger, the Luddite Cropper and the deluded followers of Joanna Southcott; 61 min. 2014 To the Editor of Amateur Photographer; co-directed by Mark Fell, 68 min. · Depositions; 24 min. 2018 Mum's Cards; 9 min. · Enceindre; 29 min. 2019 Cézanne; 7 min. 2020 Patrick; 21 min. 2021 For Dan; 12 min. 2022 Being in a Place – A Portrait of Margaret Tait; 61 min.

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2023