Independent Cinema for Everyone

71 minutes, Colour/B&W, 5.1 Surround, 16:9
Original format: 35mm film & video

‘Eglantine’ is an intimate and vivid account of a young girl’s real and fantastical adventure in a remote forest one evening. Artist-filmmaker Margaret Salmon’s debut feature is not only a loving homage to classic children’s films such as Ray Ashley’s ‘Little Fugitive’, Jean Renoir’s ‘The River’ and Albert Lamorisse’s ‘The Red Balloon’, but draws from nature studies of the past, such as Mary Field’s ‘Secrets of Nature’ series. Shot on 35mm in various locations around Scotland, Salmon draws inspiration from a range of cinematic movements as well as wildlife documentaries to produce a lyrical and sensual portrait of a child’s eye perspective on the natural world.

Born in 1975 in Suffern, New York, Margaret Salmon lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. She creates filmic portraits that weave together poetry and ethnography. Focusing on individuals in their everyday activities, her films capture the minutiae of daily life and infuse them with gentle grandeur, touching upon universal human themes. Adapting techniques drawn from various cinematic movements, such as Cinema Vérité, the European Avant Garde and Italian Neo-Realism, Salmon’s orchestrations of sound and image introduce a formal lyricism into the tradition of realist film. Margaret Salmon won the first Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2006. Her work was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and the Berlin Biennale in 2010 and was featured in individual exhibitions at Tramway, Glasgow, Witte de With in Rotterdam and Whitechapel Gallery in London among others.