The Firth is the most recent piece from the renowned moving image and poetry project, Filmpoem, founded in 2010 by artist, editor and director, Alastair Cook. As with so much of the work from Filmpoem, The Firth is a moving and beautiful piece of work. The film-making team here also includes regular collaborators, Luca Nasciuti (composer) and James William Norton (cinematographer). All three are based in Edinburgh.

The film draws on two poems by Scottish writer John Glenday, who also voices them for the film. They are from his collection, The Firth (Mariscat Press, 2020). His comments on them:

salve regina is a rebirth poem, of course, but based on the story of my brother almost getting washed out to sea on a home made raft when he was about ten or twelve. The coastguard found his raft, with his clothes on it, in the middle of the estuary, and assumed he had drowned. It’s also a poem of escape from the family, in a way. Some part of him walked home naked, another part never went home again.

dune grass in january is a portrait of my mother, who appears and reappears in The Firth, and I suppose by extension, a portrait of that typical, restrained, self-sufficient Scottish personality. Troubled, but untroubling. Approachable but prickly at times.

Moving Poems has previously shared more than 50 films from Alastair Cook, a major figure in poetry film world-wide.