Family Fugue
16mm to digital, 35 mins, colour and black & white, 2022
Director, writer & editor
George Finlay Ramsay
Cinematographer
Alex Hetherington, Luke Fowler
Original Score & mix
Rudi Zygadlo
Sound recordist
Luke Fowler
Art Director
Nina Lopez Le Galliard
Creative Producer
Annie Crabtree
Lighting
Charlie Hope
Underwater camera
James Holcombe and Arepo
Captions
Collective Text
Assistant Camera
Chloe Charlton
Colourist Jo Barker
Script Doctor
Gilbert Ramsay
Performers
Mark Thomson, Louise Ramsay, Paul Ramsay, Adam Elyas Franji Ramsay, Sophie Ramsay, Bebe Geen, George Finlay Ramsay
Developing & Scanning
Kodak Film Lab London, Digital Orchard, Gauge Film
Special Thanks
Rupert Residency, Serlachius Residency, Blair Castle Archive, Bamff Wildland
First presented as part of ‘Not the candle, nor the wick, but the burning’ at Camden Art Centre. Subsequently screened at EXiS (SK), Alchemy Festival of Film and Moving Image, Rencontres Internationales Paris Berlin (DE/FR), London Short Film Festival & PAF Olomouc (CZ).
Funded by Creative Scotland and Hope Scott Trust.
A film about how we are haunted by, and in turn haunt our ancestors, and a family who cannot agree on how to tell their own story.
Family Fugue is a chase in three movements with a white snake, a red Duchess and a golden boy, spanning eight centuries and starting in a cave. It features performances from multiple members of the Ramsay family.
Beginning with the family's origin story of Neish de Ramsay, a 13th century wizard who was said to have cured king Alexander II of Scotland using a potion from a white snake; it continues with Katherine Stewart Murray, Duchess of Atholl, a trailblazing female MP in the early 20th century who fell out of politics because she vocally opposed fascism; and concludes with David Ramsay, a polymath prankster whose life was terminated abruptly during action in World War II, suggesting his death was not final. Playing with these histories as a score to be interpreted, using documentary, reenactment and lush theatrical tableau, the film allows disagreement, criticism and self doubt to flow in and out.