Bogancloch
Ben Rivers / United Kingdom & Germany / 2024 / 86 min
CPH:DOX winner Ben Rivers is back with a poetic portrait of hermit Jake Williams and his life in the Scottish Highlands. An ingenious film shot in beautiful black and white.
Deep in the Scottish Highlands, hermit Jake Williams leads a laid-back life in his own good company, and has done so for the past 40 years. Here, he has room to reflect slowly and deeply on the cosmic interconnectedness of everything while the seasons change and work gets done. All this is given loving attention in Ben Rivers‘ new film which invites us into Williams’ life world, where the wind rustles the pine trees so you can almost smell them. Rivers won the main prize at CPH:DOX for ‘Two Years at Sea’ back in 2011, and has returned to his friend Jake with a phenomenally poetic sequel that you by no means need to have seen the first film to fully enjoy – although you will certainly want to! Is Bogancloch a place on the map or a dimension in Jake’s inner universe? Nothing is certain out in the Highlands.