On the small Scottish island of Erraid, members of an off-the-grid community seek to live as close to nature as possible, pursuing a sustainable alternative to the consumerism of the outside world. This means days spent working the land and relying on one another. Against the Tide follows a woman named Gill who decided to upend her life after a relationship breakup, and ‘risk the unknown’ by moving to the island. Capturing the contemplative pace of life on Erraid, the Scotland-based filmmaker Giulia Candussi follows Gill as her six-month trial stay comes to a close, and she and her fellow community members decide if she’ll become a permanent resident.
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Design and fashion
A ceramicist puts her own bawdy spin on the folk language of pottery
14 minutes
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Art
Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement
15 minutes
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Language and linguistics
Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers
5 minutes
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Home
How an artist transformed a dilapidated hunting lodge into a house made of dreams
8 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
In art, the sublime is a feedback loop, evolving with whatever’s next to threaten us
9 minutes
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Family life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes
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Film and visual culture
Our world has very different contours when a millimetre is blown up to a full screen
8 minutes
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History of technology
Replicating Shakespearean-era printing brings its own dramas and comedy
19 minutes
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Animals and humans
The wild tale of a young animal keeper, an angry tiger and a torn circle net
10 minutes