Anthony Baxter's EYE OF THE STORM will have its World Premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival on Sunday 28 February 2021.
Award-winning documentary filmmaker, Anthony Baxter, who exposed Donald Trump’s destruction of the landscape on an environmentally sensitive site in Scotland, has today revealed details of his next film. Commissioned by BBC Scotland, EYE OF THE STORM will have its World Premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival on Sunday 28 February.
An award-winning documentary filmmaker who exposed Donald Trump’s destruction of the landscape on an environmentally sensitive site in Scotland, has today revealed details of his next film. Commissioned by BBC Scotland, EYE OF THE STORM will have its World Premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival on Sunday 28 February.
But rather than exposing a billionaire tycoon’s bulldozing of the landscape, EYE OF THE STORM is a documentary about the late great James Morrison – an artist who spent his life capturing the drama of the skies and hills around his Montrose home and the melting ice caps of the High Arctic.
EYE OF THE STORM is released in virtual cinemas from 5th March 2021
Described as ‘a moving portrait’ of Mr Morrison who died in August of last year, Anthony Baxter spent two years following the artist as he battled with his fading eyesight and deteriorating health.
“James wanted to meet me after seeing You’ve Been Trumped, as he was concerned about the devastation of the coastline taking place at the Trump golf course, and the idea for the documentary started then,” said Baxter.
“It was a privilege to be able to follow James over the last couple of years of his life,” added the Director. “His work is breathtakingly beautiful, and I hope this film will bring it to a whole new audience in Scotland and around the world.”
The film tells the story of James Morrison’s early years, painting the tenements of Glasgow, through to his dramatic encounter with a polar bear while painting melting icebergs in North West Greenland. As the artist struggles with imposing blindness, the film follows James, as he prepares for what turned out to be his last ever public exhibition at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh in January 2020.
Drawing on a vault of rare BBC archive and featuring specially commissioned animation by Catriona Black with the support of Screen Scotland, EYE OF THE STORM also features songs by leading Scottish folk singer Karine Polwart.
Director Anthony Baxter comments:
When I came to live in my late mother’s home town of Montrose, Angus nearly two decades ago, I was very aware of the beautiful paintings of James Morrison. His work could occasionally be seen in the Montrose Museum or coming under the hammer at the town’s auction rooms. It was only later I learned of his wider reputation as one of the greatest landscape artists of his generation. He would hold major exhibitions at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh where his dramatic paintings of stormy skies and the rolling hills of Angus and the Mearns were snapped up by eager buyers.
But for a star artist he was very seldom ‘centre stage’, despite the fact his work hung in the homes of celebrities such as JK Rowling and the Royal Family. And so, when James wrote to me after seeing my film You’ve Been Trumped, and suggested meeting for a coffee, I was delighted to accept. Sitting in his Montrose studio, James explained how he had been truck by the fight of the local residents standing up for their landscape against billionaire Donald Trump. At that time, he was struggling with painting, due to his fast-deteriorating eyesight and had taken a break from his brushes. He felt bereft without it.
I asked whether I could follow him on camera should he consider painting again and he agreed. BBC Scotland commissioned the film. So, in the spring of 2018 I began to document James as he returned to work. On discovering more about his fascinating life, from his early tenement paintings in The Rottenrow in the Townhead area of Glasgow to his dramatic trips to paint in the High Arctic to capture the melting ice cap, I felt cinematically, there was potential to add another dimension to the film. With the assistance of Screen Scotland, we commissioned some animation to bring these episodes to life. These scenes were hand drawn and meticulously crafted by the award-winning Scottish animator Catriona Black - perhaps best known for her haunting work on the Iolaire disaster on the Isle of Lewis. Having completed the majority of filming at what turned out to be James’ last exhibition in January 2020, I had an editor’s dream palette to work with, and was able complete the film over the lockdowns that followed.
After moving into a home here in Montrose, James died at the age of 88 in August. While it is a personal sadness he did not get to see the completed film, I hope EYE OF THE STORM will help his stunning works find new admirers around the world.
EYE OF THE STORM is released in virtual cinemas from 5th March 2021
Storm over the Grampians, 2015, oil on board, © James Morrison | Eye of the Storm
