Dalziel + Scullion

Wolf 2012

This short film is essentially about co-existence and loss, it is based around the story of the last wolf in Scotland, said to have been killed by the hunter Polson on or around 1700 near Helmsdale in Sutherland. The narrative of the film is written by Robin Lloyd-Jones and touches on ideas of migration, land use, religion and ecology. Other parts of the film have no words at all, only images and the sound of a looped solo fiddle performed by Aidan O’Rourke. The work was filmed around Helmsdale, an area synonymous with the Highland Clearances of the late 18th and early 19th century, when hundreds of crofting families were cleared off the land, particularly from the glens that radiate from Helmsdale, making way for large herds of livestock and new ways of managing land. With time, plantation forests, estate game hunting, farming and even gold panning, made further changes to this landscape, activities that fluctuate in relation to economic forces and cultural acceptances.