A big thank you to BAFTA Scotland and the jurors for awarding us a BAFTA in the ‘Single Documentary’ category! Thank you to all contributors and the production teams for so much hard work in making this happen! Due to covid only two could be at the event so here is Mark Harrison, executive producer Firecrest Films and Parisa Urquhart Producer/Director accepting the award.
Lots of exciting discussions with potential distributors in the UK and the US, working to get Strike For Freedom: Frederick Douglass in Scotland available in schools, colleges, and universities. Watch this space, 2021 looks to be fully of promising opportunities!
We’ve been busy working on getting Strike For Freedom: Frederick Douglass in Scotland in schools across Scotland and the UK with some screenings and Q&A’s booked in for the start of 2021! We hope to continue working with distributors and individual schools to make the film a permanent resource to teachers.
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Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS) welcomes Sheila Asante as Project Manager and announces the team for Empire, Slavery & Scotland’s Museums: Addressing Our Colonial Legacy, a project to explore how the history of Scotland’s involvement in the British Empire, colonialism, and transatlantic slavery, can be told by Scotland’s museums.
‘A responsibility to face up to our city’s past’ says Edinburgh council leader. Council boss Adam McVey has insisted that Edinburgh has to take an ‘honest’ look at its history and links to slavery.
Strike For Freedom: Frederick Douglass in Scotland had its US Premier at the African Diaspora International Film Festival. As part of the festival the film was also made available to pupils across New York through the ADIFF School’s Programme. We are so pleased it was shown to students and members of the public alike and look forward to other potential US screenings in the upcoming new year!
We were chosen as one of the films to be featured in the November Lift-Off Sessions, shown alongside films from across the world.
Sir Geoff Palmer is appointed to lead review of Edinburgh’s statues and street names links to slavery.
Urquhart Media has been receiving excellent feedback about the Scotland, Slavery and Statues documentary with many appreciating the excellent access to contributors that Parisa Urquhart achieved on all sides of the debate so the viewer could really grasp the different arguments and points of view. Key academic specialists were interviewed to convey the facts on each aspect of the debate. Sir Tom Devine, who stepped into the debate late on with new points of view on the topic was also included. However, Sir Tom reacted in the press about his contribution and it was important for Urquhart Media to request a right of reply as we were not contacted by the newspaper or the journalist for our response for the four pages in The Sunday Herald where it was mentioned. Here is a link to our right of reply published on Sunday 8th November 2020.
Parisa Urquhart, producer and director, is interviewed in The Edinburgh Reporter about the making of Scotland, Slavery and Statues. A big thank you to Edinburgh Reporter for providing excellent footage of the BLM event at Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh in June 2020.
Scotland, Slavery and Statues premiered on the BBC Scotland Channel on Tuesday 20th October 2020 at 10pm and on Saturday 24th October at 930pm and has received a great response so far!
We have had excellent media coverage about our forthcoming premier of Scotland, Slavery and Statues with nine newspapers writing articles about the documentary.
History Extra (BBC History Magazine) has written an interesting article that documents the Black Abolitionists that shocked Victorian Britain. In their fight to end the horrors of slavery, African- American abolitionists travelled to Britain to rally support. This article details the work of Frederick Douglass, William and Ellen Craft, Moses Roper and Ida B Wells. Urquhart Media hope that Strike For Freedom: Frederick Douglass in Scotland can be the beginning of a series of films telling the stories of these African-American abolitionists and their time in Britain.
A fantastic mural of Frederick Douglass appeared on Lower Gilmore Place, near 33 Gilmore Place where Douglass lived during his time in Edinburgh and where the plaque was revealed in our film Strike For Freedom: Frederick Douglass in Scotland. It’s striking, and hard to miss, bringing attention to Douglass’ links to Scotland’s capital city.
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Having lived through the first lockdown with family in Killin, a Scottish highland village, producer Parisa Urquhart gleaned a unique insight into how Covid was impacting this village. Channel 4 News agreed to Parisa producing a short news piece on the village that was incorporated into their news show.
Urquhart Media teams up with Glasgow-based award winning production company Firecrest Films to make the BBC Scotland hour-long documentary on Dundas. Production began in July 2020.
BBC Scotland want the Dundas documentary to be delivered by October 2020 in time for Black History Month in the UK. To complete the film in this tight deadline Urquhart Media has started the search for a Scottish-based production company to co-produce with.
Parisa Urquhart has been the only documentary maker following the story, over four years, of the rewording of the plaque for the Melville Monument and its subsequent explosive debate. In June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd and the spotlight put on the Black Live Matter demonstration in Edinburgh, Adam McVey, head of the City of Edinburgh Council, announced new wording for the Melville Monument plaque. Following this announcement Urquhart Media was successful in getting an hour-long documentary commissioned by David Harron for BBC Scotland. The documentary will use the footage taken over the last four years as well as film the more recent activities in Edinburgh and Canada.
After a long stalemate in the debate on the wording of the plaque of the Melville Monument new developments started occurring after the tragic murder of George Floyd which intensified the Black Lives Matter movement in Scotland. Channel 4 News agreed to Parisa Urquhart producing a short news piece on the updated situation since the 2018 Channel 4 News film. This report was incorporated into the C4 News show.
After the successful launch of Strike For Freedom: Frederick Douglass in Scotland we enjoyed a tour of screenings across Scotland. It was screened alongside the US Drama Harriet at Eden Court Theatre as part of the Inverness Film Festival. Parisa was invited to introduce the film, explain how the film came about and explained the very close activist links between Douglass, his wife Anna Murray and Harriet Tubman which many viewers were grateful to hear. The DCA in Dundee also screened the film alongside Harriet. We also had standalone screenings where Parisa Urquhart and Prof Bernier gave talks at the CCA in Glasgow, Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayr, Aberdeen Library and Dumbarton Library. It’s really important to bring this history to the people of Scotland!
