A Hawick charity is to receive a £140k grant from the British Film Instutute to deliver a major new film preservation and screen heritage project celebrating Borders communities on film.
Alchemy Film & Arts announced this week the launch of ‘Oor Ain Film Archive’, a new project exploring the social histories and industrial legacies of Hawick and the Scottish Borders, with thanks to a £140k grant from the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.
Taking place between Autumn 2025 and Spring 2026, the project marks the 60th anniversary of the first ‘Hawick Pictorial’ – what became a series of popular annual snapshots of the year in Hawick on film, made by members of Hawick Film Group between 1965 and 1980.
Oor Ain Film Archive will include the digitisation of decades-old films made by Hawick and Borders communities; a season of screenings and public events across the forthcoming autumn and winter; a call for donations of old films from the region; and a young people’s creative learning initiative as part of Film Town, Alchemy’s year-round community engagement and skills development programme.
The project will also see the launch of a permanent online film archive where audiences can access the newly digitised material at their leisure, and provide training opportunities for Alchemy staff to enhance their skills in film preservation. There will also be an exhibition of films from within the archive at Alchemy’s flagship event, Alchemy Film Festival, in spring 2026.
Launching in November, the public screenings programme will include all eleven Hawick Pictorials in a newly digitised format. They will be shown on a weekly basis in Heart of Hawick and are supported by other rarely-seen short films from the archive. Tickets are available now via Eventbrite and Alchemy’s website.
Michael Pattison, Director of Alchemy Film & Arts, said: “We’re so happy to launch Oor Ain Film Archive, a major new project that continues Alchemy’s long-term commitment not only to secure a digital legacy for films made by Hawick and Scottish Borders communities, but also to place them within a national conversation. The BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding, will allow our hard-working team to develop their skills and build on previous drives to digitise films made by Hawick and Borders communities, to celebrate our region’s rich social histories on film, and to make these historically significant films digitally accessible to audiences – who have repeatedly told us that they’d like to see a central resource created for viewing these films.”
Marta Berto, Screen Heritage Fund Manager at the BFI, commented: “We’re delighted to support Alchemy Film & Arts with National Lottery funding and are excited to see the project launch. Alchemy’s proposals demonstrated impressive cultural ambition through its selection of archives to work with – the unusual Hawick Pictorial documentaries and broader local, industrial screen heritage. The dramatic social shifts that have come with deindustrialisation make this material particularly poignant and important to preserve as community-made records. With Alchemy’s dedicated and incisive commitment to diversity, inclusion, social justice and sustainability, this project promises to deliver strong benefits for local and regional communities in South of Scotland and beyond, while also strengthening Alchemy’s ability to continue their important, critically engaged, and collaborative practice.”
Further details including tickets to the Hawick Pictorials screenings can be found on Alchemy’s website at www.alchemyfilmandarts.org.uk.