Am Bocsa Ltd
Am Bocsa, founded in 2001 by animator and art critic Catrìona Black, makes animated shorts for television and cinematic release, specialising in Gaelic language stories.
The company’s films are of the highest artistic and musical quality, creating an innovative fusion of Gaelic heritage with new technologies. Am Bocsa specialises in 2D digital animation, using the latest software along with traditional animation techniques to achieve a painterly result.
In the company’s first ten-minute film, Pìobairean Bhòrnais (2003), a young boy makes a pact with a sinister fairy. An archive recording of the traditional Gaelic story is combined with modern bagpipe music by Rory Campbell, and animation by Catrìona Black in the style of a moving oil painting. The short film has been nominated for several awards, broadcast on three Scottish television channels, screened in over 50 cinemas around the world, and is currently being distributed on DVD in the USA and Canada by National Geographic.
Am Bocsa has recently completed its second short film, Calum Noah: The Very First Sword Dance (2007). This long-lost tall tale from the Isle of Skye reveals that the Scottish highland sword dance was invented by Noah’s son, Calum, fresh from the ark. Catrìona Black sets the light-hearted story in a watery world of colour and magic, with music composed and performed by award-winning concertina player, Simon Thoumire. Calum Noah premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in August 2007, and will be screened on BBC Alba in the near future.
Since its inception, Am Bocsa has also provided on and off-screen talent for two half-hour BBC documentaries. Catrìona And The Colourists (2004) follows Catrìona Black’s efforts to retrace the footsteps of the popular early 20th century painters, and to recreate their landscapes out of doors, in animated paint on glass. The result is a highly entertaining story, charting the highs and lows of a crazy artistic battle against the Scottish weather. The programme was nominated for an award at the Celtic Film and Television Festival in 2005.
Another documentary, Superhero (2005), charts Am Bocsa’s creation of the first ever Gaelic cartoon superhero. Having canvassed the Gaelic people for their views, Catrìona Black comes up with the legendary Celtic warrior queen, Sgàthach, served by her faithful Uist hedgehog army in a struggle against Poacherman, her evil, scaled, salmon-poaching nemesis.
Catrìona Black was Convener of the Scottish Animation Group from 2004 to March 2006.