Being in a Place... & Films by Margaret Tait

“Around 2019 I began work on a film about Margaret Tait, the initial impetus being the discovery of a box of Tait’s 16mm rushes and offcuts* that were rejected by the Moving Image Archive, where the majority of her filmic elements reside. The material—all collated and spliced together by Tait on reels (including sound takes)—was rejected on the criteria of not being considered “finished films” and therefore presumably of insignificant artistic value to the archive. I found this judgement strange and inconsistent as the archive already holds unfinished films of Tait’s and presents them on their website making no distinction between what is completed or otherwise. In recent years there has been an academic interest in the “unfinished film” reconsidering the rich generative potential of this phenomena rather than deeming it a site of failure.

Being in a Place is based on Tait’s unrealised script proposed for Channel 4 in 1983 titled Heartlandscape Orkney: Visions of Ephemerality and Permanence. It was written at a time of great excitement about the new channel and the possibilities it could afford independent filmmakers. Part of Channel 4’s original mandate was to provide an alternative to the existing channels by providing an inclusive and diverse platform for disenfranchised groups. Margaret, an older, female filmmaker based in the archipelago of the Orkney islands, therefore would seem like a natural choice to have been involved in such an initiative. Unfortunately, this was not to be…” – Luke Fowler