Living Proof: A Climate Story – is a new feature-length exploration of Scotland’s complex relationship to the global climate crisis, told through archive footage.

In the year that Scotland hosts the UN’s climate change conference (COP26), curator and director Emily Munro searches for the roots of the climate crisis in our history. Archive footage from the National Library of Scotland evocatively portrays a country shaped by demands for energy and economic growth, while a dramatic soundtrack amplifies the voices of the past in powerful and unsettling ways. The film reveals Scotland’s post-war history as seen through the lens of current debate, inviting audiences on a journey to revisit the promises of the past and consider how they relate to our future on this planet. Was climate change inevitable? Can we break free from a boom-and-bust mentality? Are we able to adapt to ensure a healthy and sustainable future for generations to come?

Featuring corporate voices, news reporters, protestors, and the general public, the footage spans the geography of Scotland, taking in the central belt, rural southern Scotland, the Highlands and the north sea, and looks at the most treasured, most contested and most exploited parts of the country. Part found-footage mash-up and part archive collage, Living Proof features a soundtrack that traverses space and time, with contemporary Scottish artists Louise Connell, Brownbear and Post Coal Prom Queen sitting alongside composers Ian Whyte, Frank Spedding, John Maxwell Geddes and David McNiven. Living Proof is a partnership project between the National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive and Film Hub Scotland.

Living Proof: A Climate Story, 96min, 2021

Image copyright: Glasgow Film Hub, based at GFT Rose St Glasgow

Alternative text for image: A photograph of Ravenscraig steel works taken from a distance.  Three children are playing on a bing – a bing is a hill made from slag, a waste product of steel manufacturing.