Mike Day | |
---|---|
Born | Michael George Waldron Day 13 November 1979 |
Nationality | Scottish |
Occupation(s) | Director, Writer, Cinematographer |
Awards | 2017 Peabody Award; 2017 Phoenix Film Festival - Best World Cinema Documentary; 2017 Hot Docs - Emerging International Filmmaker; 2017 DOC NYC - Grand Jury Prize |
Michael George Waldron Day (born 13 November 1979) is a documentary filmmaker from North Berwick, Scotland. His films explore the experiences of people from isolated and marginalised communities who are maintaining old traditions in modern times, and the social and environmental questions these raise. He won a Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy for his 2016 film The Islands and the Whales. [1]
Day grew up in North Berwick, East Lothian, Scotland. [2] His father was a merchant seaman. [3]
Day attended North Berwick High School and The Edinburgh Academy. He later studied at The University of Aberdeen and the University of the West of England in Bristol.[ citation needed ]
Day has taught MFA Film students as a visiting professor at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. [4] [ independent source needed ] He practised as a lawyer in England and Dubai prior to becoming a filmmaker. [3] A keen sailor, Day has completed the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. [2]
Day's first feature was 2011's The Guga Hunters of Ness. The documentary follows a group of men from Ness on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland who maintain the local tradition of travelling to the rocky islet of Sula Sgeir and catching a quota of guga, or young gannets. The guga are then returned to Ness to be prepared and eaten by some of the locals. Day and his crew filmed the hunters' preparations on Lewis before travelling to Sula Sgeir to document the hunt. BBC Scotland purchased the rights and premiered the film in January 2011. [5] [6]
Day's second offering was The Islands and the Whales. The piece documents the tradition of whale hunting in the Faroe Islands, and examines how scientific, ecological and political factors are impacting the viability of the practice. [7] The film received critical acclaim, taking prizes at the Phoenix Film Festival, RiverRun International Film Festival, Hot Docs in Canada and DOC NYC. The film was also nominated for an Emmy, a Scottish BAFTA and the documentary prize at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, where the film premiered. [8] Day received a Peabody Award for the film at the 77th Annual Peabody Awards Ceremony in New York. [9] [10] [11]
Day's third feature, Cowboy Poets, was released in 2022. The film documents established and aspiring performers in the cowboy poetry genre and builds towards the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. The work was nominated for prizes at the Cleveland Film Festival, the Zurich Film Festival and the Camden International Film Festival. [12]
Gannets are seabirds comprising the genus Morus in the family Sulidae, closely related to boobies. They are known as 'solan' or 'solan goose' in Scotland. A common misconception is that the Scottish name is 'guga' but this is the Gaelic name referring to the chicks only.
North Berwick is a seaside town and former royal burgh in East Lothian, Scotland. It is situated on the south shore of the Firth of Forth, approximately 20 miles (32 km) east-northeast of Edinburgh. North Berwick became a fashionable holiday resort in the nineteenth century because of its two sandy bays, the East Bay and the West Bay, and continues to attract holidaymakers. Golf courses at the ends of each bay are open to visitors.
Rona is an uninhabited Scottish island in the North Atlantic. It is often referred to as North Rona to distinguish it from the island of South Rona in the Inner Hebrides. It has an area of 109 hectares and a maximum elevation of 108 metres (354 ft).
Whaling in the Faroe Islands, or grindadráp, is a type of drive hunting that involves herding various species of whales and dolphins, but primarily pilot whales, into shallow bays to be beached, killed, and butchered. Each year, an average of around 700 long-finned pilot whales are caught, alongside varying numbers of Atlantic white-sided dolphins.
The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), established in 1947, is the world's oldest continually running film festival. EIFF presents both UK and international films, in all genres and lengths. It also presents themed retrospectives and other specialized programming strands.
Ness is the northernmost part of the Isle of Lewis, a community consisting of about 16 villages, including Lionel, Habost, Swainbost, Cross, North and South Dell, Cross Skigersta, Skigersta, Eorodale, Adabroc, Port of Ness, Knockaird, Fivepenny and Eoropie. It was the most north-westerly community in the European Union, when the United Kingdom was a member. Its most northerly point is the Butt of Lewis. The name Ness derives from the old Norse for headland and many of the other place names in the area also have a Norse origin.
Sula Sgeir is a small, uninhabited Scottish islet in the North Atlantic, 18 kilometres west of Rona. One of the most remote islands of the British Isles, it lies approximately forty nautical miles north of Lewis and is best known for its population of gannets. It has a narrow elongated shape running north-northeast to south-southwest, and is approximately 900 m long by typically 100 m wide.
The Cove is a 2009 American documentary film directed by Louie Psihoyos that analyzes and questions dolphin hunting practices in Japan. It was awarded the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2010. The film is a call to action to halt mass dolphin kills and captures, change Japanese fishing practices, and inform and educate the public about captivity and the increasing hazard of mercury poisoning from consuming dolphin meat.
The Scottish Seabird Centre is a marine conservation and education charity, that is supported by an award-winning visitor attraction in North Berwick, East Lothian, Scotland. Opened by the Duke of Rothesay in 2000 and funded by the Millennium Commission. The showpiece of the centre is the interactive live cameras out to the wildlife on the Firth of Forth islands, including Bass Rock, Isle of May, Fidra and Craigleith. The Bass Rock is the world's largest colony of Northern gannets with an estimated 150,000 birds present.
The Harbour at North Berwick in East Lothian, Scotland, was originally a ferry port for pilgrims travelling to St Andrews in Fife. Today the water is home to leisure craft, a tourist launch and the remains of the fishing fleet that once dominated the area, while on dry land the Scottish Seabird Centre, East Lothian Yacht Club and Auld Kirk Green are the main attractions.
The Islands of the Forth are a group of small islands located in the Firth of Forth and in the estuary of the River Forth on the east coast of Scotland. Most of the group lie in the open waters of the firth, between the Lothians and Fife, with the majority to the east of the city of Edinburgh. Two islands lie further west in the river estuary.
The Faroe or Faeroe Islands, or simply the Faroes, are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. The official language of the country is Faroese, which is closely related to and partially mutually intelligible with Icelandic.
Port of Ness is a village on the Isle of Lewis in the community of Ness, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Port of Ness is within the parish of Barvas. Port of Ness is situated at the end of the A857, which runs from Stornoway. In 2014, the Ness Fishery Memorial was erected to celebrate the fishing heritage in the area and to commemorate the 96 people who lost their lives in the industry between 1835 and 1900.
Don Coutts is a Scottish filmmaker best known as the director of the 2003 feature film American Cousins and for bringing the world of Katie Morag to the screen. The successful translation of the characters from the books of Mairi Hedderwick has won nine awards - including a US Peabody, 3 BAFTAs, a Royal Television Society Scotland Children's Award, a Scottish BAFTA and a Kidscreen award.
Mark Cousins is an English-born, Northern Irish director and writer. A prolific documentarian, among his best-known works is the 15-hour 2011 documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey.
Callum Macrae is a Scottish filmmaker, writer and journalist currently with Outsider Television, which he had co-founded with Alex Sutherland in 1993.
The Edinburgh Filmhouse is a cinema located in Edinburgh, Scotland, which opened in 1979. It was home to the world's oldest continually running film festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival. The cinema closed in October 2022 when its parent body went into administration. In September 2023, a campaign organised by former staff to reopen the cinema got underway. The planned re-opening date is currently June 2025.
Sara Ishaq is a Yemeni-Scottish film director. Ishaq directed and produced the critically acclaimed film Karama Has No Walls (2012). The short film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary and BAFTA Scotland New Talents award. In 2013, her award-winning feature film The Mulberry House, which deals with her relationship with her family against the backdrop of the 2011 Yemeni uprising, premiered at IDFA.
Oliver "Olly" Hicks is a British ocean rower, kayaker, explorer and inspirational speaker. He holds three world records for adventure. He is best known for his solo ocean rows and extreme kayak voyages. He first made the headlines after his solo trans-Atlantic voyage in 2005 when he became the first and currently only person to row from America to England solo and the youngest person to row any ocean solo. Hicks has rowed and paddled over 7,000 miles on ocean expeditions since 2005. Over 6,000 miles and 220 days alone at sea.