Collection search - The Shepherds of Berneray

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

1983-0199

Film

1 of 1

1981

producer/recording, Jack Shea; executive producer/recording, Robert Gardner; editing, Allen Moore; narrator, Finlay J. MacDonald; songs, Mary Mac Askill; Duncan MacKinnon; Christine Munro; poetry, Duncan MacLeod

Documentary film depicting the life of a Gaelic speaking island community in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The film follows the work of the Berneray shepherds over the course of a full year, encompassing the life cycle of the sheep they tend - includes sequences on an ewe giving birth to a baby lamb, shearing, and castration of young male lambs. The film also portrays two different Berneray families: one, a middle-aged bachelor, John Ferguson; the other, three generations of the Munros - Angus, his son John and his children. Always visible is the influence of the weather and the harsh environment on the lives of the people. Various Gaelic songs and stories are interwoven with interviews and scenes of island activity to reveal the texture of life on Berneray. A major underlying theme of the film is that of transition and concerns a community struggling to survive while maintaining its Gaelic heritage. <56mn>

English

Open

V1 8308-0009

with permission of Harvard University