‘Dear Green Place’ & ‘(Re)Imagining Glasgow’ Screening

‘Dear Green Place’ & '(Re)Imagining Glasgow' Film Screenings
7pm Thursday 17th December
Livestreamed through Facebook

***Please note this is a one-off screening, the films will not be available to view after the event***

Dear Green Place (1968) is a rarely seen film produced by Oscar Marzaroli & directed by Michael Pavett for Ogam Films, of which Marzaroli was a co-founder. The film uses stills of Marzaroli's photographs made over ten years and combines this with a clever use of soundtrack and commentary which add depth to an already rich selection of Marzaroli’s work. Ewan McColl sings about seeing ‘a train set the night on fire’ from ‘Dirty Old Town’, as the film pans across an evocative image of a smoke billowing from a train leaving Glasgow Central Station. Photographs of children playing in Glasgow streets and back closes are displayed to traditional Scottish folk song ‘Coulters Candy’ and some of Marzaroli’s wonderful images of outdoor spaces and parks in Glasgow are displayed to the song ‘You like the Sun’.

The commentary, written by Alasdair Gray, describes the changes in the city being documented by Marzaroli; ’a new kind of Glasgow is being built’. The theme of our memories in a changing city runs throughout the film as the commentary states ‘the city that I grew up in is fast disappearing, already many of the places of my childhood exist only in my memory’. 
Running Time: 14 mins 33 secs

(Re)Imagining Glasgow (2016) is a short film by Chris Leslie looking at how Glasgow has been torn down, reimagined and transformed, and questions the city’s seemingly never ending urban renewal over the past 40 years. Commissioned by Glasgow Institute of Architects for Scotland’s Festival of Architecture 2016, the film playfully reworks Oscar Marzaroli’s 1970 film ‘Glasgow 1980’ and uses previously unseen footage shot by Marzaroli for an uncompleted follow-up film, ‘Glasgow’s Progress’, alongside new footage of Glasgow today shot by Leslie. Running Time: 15 mins

'Dear Green Place' is available to view by appointment at the National Libraries of Scotland Moving Image Archive.

Many thanks to Michael Pavett and the Marzaroli Collection for their consent in screening Dear Green Place.

Banner Image: © Chris Leslie