Refugia: A Celtic Rainforest
A film by Coulson & Tennant in collaboration with Stephen Rutt. Original score by Ben Please.
Newton Stewart Cinema (part of the Wigtown Book Festival progamme)
Screening with live score plus Q&A afterwards: 27 September 2026, 7.30pm
Screening with film only: 30 September, 2pm
Refugia: A Celtic Rainforest is an art documentary exploring the temperate rainforests of southwest Scotland — a rare and ancient ecosystem surviving quietly between lochs, farms, and commercial forestry. The film reveals a hidden landscape where the birds, mosses and lichens of these oakwoods persist against the pressures of time, industry, and climate. Structured around local voices and the journeys of migratory bird species, the film draws subtle parallels between ecological migration and human movement. It reflects on ideas of survival, belonging, refuge, and home. As migratory birds travel thousands of miles between rainforests in Africa and Scotland, the film considers migration as a universal and deeply natural act. Reflective, immersive, and emotionally restrained, the film becomes both an ecological portrait and a meditation on persistence, connection, and the fragile worlds that endure unnoticed around us.
Refugia: A Celtic Rainforest is the culmination of the 'Artful Migration Residency Programme' commissioned by Upland and Moving Souls Dance in partnership with the Galloway & Southern Ayrshire Biosphere and RSPB Scotland. Funded by Creative Scotland.
The screening will be approx. 30 minutes. On Sunday 27 September only the film will be accompanied by a live performance of the original score. After the screening there will be a Q&A for approximately 30 minutes.
Refugia: A Celtic Rainforest
27 September 2026