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Family Fugue
16mm to digital, 35 mins, colour and b&w, sound, 2022 
& installation

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'Both funny and beautiful, which is rare'

Bella Marrin (editor of Fieldnotes Journal)

'Such a strong voice... gorgeous images of glinting hay, twirling eyes, waterfalls, precious surfaces &  inner monologues by poltergeists... reminiscent of The Colour of Pomegranates and Not I' 

Izabella Scott 

'Teeming with the kind of rhythm, wit and texture that you'd expect from a film that takes the double meaning of its own title seriously enough to become a sincerely epic gag, this is a casually stunning examination of the ways in which identity is inherited and imagined, dressed up and gilded, challenged and reworked. Un unusually propulsive film'

Michael Pattison (co Director of Alchemy Film and Arts)

A film about how we are haunted by, and in turn haunt our ancestors, and a family who cannot agree on how to tell their own story.

 

Family Fugue is a chase in three movements with a white snake, a red Duchess and a golden boy, spanning eight centuries and starting in a cave. It features performances from multiple members of the Ramsay family.

 

Beginning with the family's origin story of Neish de Ramsay, a 13th century wizard who was said to have cured king Alexander II of Scotland using a potion from a white snake; it continues with Katherine Stewart Murray, Duchess of Atholl, a trailblazing female MP in the early 20th century who fell out of politics because she vocally opposed fascism; and concludes with David Ramsay, a polymath prankster whose life was terminated abruptly during action in World War II, suggesting his death was not final.

 

Playing with these histories as a score to be interpreted, using documentary, reenactment and lush theatrical tableau, the film allows disagreement, criticism and self doubt to flow in and out.

 

‘Life is not the wick, nor the candle, it is the burning’

Katherine Stewart Murray

TRAILER

Director & writer  George Finlay Ramsay 

DOP Alex Hetherington, Luke Fowler

Sound Luke Fowler

Original Score & mix Rudi Zygadlo 

Costume & set design Nina Lopez Le Galliard 

Creative Producer Annie Crabtree 

Executive Producer Adam Ramsay

Lighting Charlie Hope 

Underwater footage James Holcombe and Arepo

Captions Collective Text 

AC Chloe Charlton 

Colourist Jo Barker  

Script Doctor Gilbert Ramsay 

Performers Mark Thomson, Louise Ramsay, Paul Ramsay, Adam Elyas Franji Ramsay, Sophie Ramsay, Bebe Geen, George Finlay Ramsay 

Developing & Scanning Kodak Film Lab London, Digital Orchard, Gauge Film

Funders Creative Scotland & Hope Scott Trust

Special Thanks Rupert Residency, Serlachius Residency, Blair Castle Archive, Bamff Wildland

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David's Room
installation designed with Nina Lopez le Galliard
A facsimile of a haunted room in Bamff House, Perthshire. An imagined rapture, combining the mine that killed David Ramsay in WW2 with his raptor obsession. A reincarnation.
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