SOME MOVIE NEWS
The Shepherds of Berneray

The Shepherds of Berneray

Documentary
October 28, 19810h 55m7.0 / 10
Overview

In 1980, Jack Shae and Allen Moore, two ethnographic filmmakers from Harvard University, moved their families to the island of Berneray in the Outer Hebrides. Over the course of 18 months they documented the everyday lives and struggles of the crofters they lived among, whom were even then a vanishing breed. The film is in English and Gaelic. This carefully observed documentary by filmmakers Jack Shae and Allen Moore is a poetic ethnographic film in the style of their mentor, Robert Gardner (“Dead Birds”). It follows the rhythm of life on a wind-swept island in the Outer Hebrides through the four seasons and in the filmmakers’ observation of the day-to-day struggles of a vanishing society we see the deep-time legacy of their kind. The film is in English and Gaelic.

Director
J
Jack Shea
Production
The Scottish Arts CouncilThe Highlands and Islands, Development Board of ScotlandThe Film Study Center, Harvard University
The Shepherds of Berneray (1981) | Some Movie News