Celebrate the Flow Country’s new UNESCO status with this visually arresting cinematic triptych. With an original soundtrack performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, this poetic meditation links ancient life to climate futures.
Synopsis
When Fish Begin to Crawl marks the Flow Country’s UNESCO inscription with a unique cinematic triptych and musical adventure. Co-directed by Morag McKinnon and composer Jim Sutherland, the film layers three moving panels: the forging of galaxies and primordial seas; the Devonian moment when fish first crawled onto land; and the vast, carbon-storing blanket bogs of northern Scotland.
Jim Sutherland’s richly textured orchestral soundtrack, performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, flows seamlessly through every frame, fusing art and science into a single narrative. Sweeping drone footage of mist-laden moors, intimate close-ups of bog flora and fauna, and archival glimpses of ancient waterways converge to dramatise life’s continuity and the urgent call to protect our climate’s foundation.
When Fish Begin to Crawl is both a hymn to nature’s epic arcs and a stirring vision of hope, reminding us that creativity and collective care are vital to sustaining the fragile balance of our shared home.
Directors: Morag Mckinnon and Jim Sutherland | Country: UK | Year: 2024 | Running Time: 65 min | Language: English | Rating: PG
Distributor: Morag Mckinnon and Jim Sutherland
Screening Details
- Festival Screening: 14 September 2025
- Festival Guests: Co-director Morag Mckinnon and co-director/composer Jim Sutherland
Trailer
About the filmmakers:
Morag McKinnon is a BAFTA-winning Scottish writer and director whose global perspective stems from her early life in Southeast Asia. Her feature Donkeys (2010) won a Scottish BAFTA, and she co-directed the acclaimed documentary I Am Breathing (2012), earning a BAFTA Scotland Best Director award. Her debut Home (1998) won 16 international prizes. She has also directed for television, including, three episodes of the BAFTA award-winning series Buried, a visceral depiction of life in prison. Morag teaches filmmaking at Edinburgh College of Art and on the Erasmus-funded Kinoeyes programme at Edinburgh Napier University.
Jim Sutherland is an award-winning composer, producer, and artistic director known for inventive, cross-genre work. His film credits include Outlaw King (Netflix) and Brave (Disney). He co-writes with hip-hop artist Darren Loki McGarvey and has collaborated with artists from Jimmy Page and Robert Plant to Jack Bruce, Mumford and Sons, The Shotts and Dykehead Pipe band, The Chieftains, and Billy Bragg. Commissioned works include celebrating Marseilles as European Capital of Culture 2013 and Derry as UK city of Culture 2013. His 36-piece orchestra La Banda Europa unites musicians from across the continent, playing instruments indigenous to their homelands. A “conjurer of the ear” (John Berger), Jim was named Producer of the Year at the 2019 MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards.