The Devil’s Plantation – the movie!

Following the success of her interactive BAFTA award-winning web project on The Devil’s Plantation, and the subsequent IOS app, film-maker May Miles Thomas created a 93-minute film of the project earlier this year, cutting together her 60+ short clips of evocative black and white imagery and 800+ music and sound segments into a coherent whole, skilfully woven together with paired narratives from Kate Dickie and Gary Lewis telling the story of Mary Ross’s wanderings and Harry Bells’ research into the Glasgow Network of Aligned Sites.

“In the 1980s archaeologist Harry Bell came to believe that Glasgow – a city built and re-built on over centuries – was laid out to a hidden design. For years he investigated the lost corners and invisible history of the landscape, plotting his ‘Secret Geometry’.

Unknown to Harry, psychiatric patient Mary Ross also wandered the city, visiting many of the same significant places. Her medical case file reveals a poignant quest to understand her troubled past and present.

The Devil’s Plantation unites the lives of these two strangers, retracing their steps to reveal an ancient secret and a timeless story of how we all live.”

After only three screenings, the movie has been nominated for a BAFTA Scotland Audience Award. To celebrate this, she has released it on Vimeo for a short time only. I have watched it and thoroughly recommend the experience. It is strangely compulsive viewing; compelling in an almost hypnotic fashion as the paired stories weave their spell and slowly draw you into the strange and slightly surreal world of Glasgow’s Secret Geometry.

The movie will be shown on the big screen in Cineworld cinemas across Scotland on 21 and 24 October – it’s definitely worth making the effort to go along and watch this if you are interested in the psychogeography of Scotland’s largest city.

Watch the trailer on Vimeo and for more details on the BAFTA event check the BAFTA Scotland website. If you’ve watched it and liked it, you can also vote for it here: http://www.cineworld.co.uk/baftascotland

Grahame Gardner
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4 thoughts on “The Devil’s Plantation – the movie!

  1. i stumbled across this site while googling geometry and how thrilled was I? I´ve spent hours reading the whoe thing and then more hours investigating all the detours – the molindinar burn being my favourite -I live in Asturias Spain but come from Scotland and cannot believe I have never seen the sighthill stones -I´m definately coming for september – hope they are still there. I have not however been able to see the video – or find any more detail of the mary ross material – apart from blog 17¿ – any reason for that? – i would so love to hear the Mary Ross stuff and see the movie- Thank you for a wonderful day!
    Michelle

    1. Hi – I made the free promo code available last Oct to Nov because the film was nominated for a BAFTA Audience award and because Cineworld were charging £9 to see it I decided to make the film available for free for a limited time. All I’m asking is for a small fee on Vimeo since I had no funding for the film – if you go to
      http://www.devilsplantation.co.uk/blog/film/
      – you’ll find the link. Many thanks!

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