1. Second Sight **** John Griffin, Montreal Gazette
   

   Alison McAlpine’s glorious hour-long tribute to the great characters and laid-back way of life on the remote Scottish Isle of Skye has a misty-twisty Gaelic quality uniquely appropriate to the subject of ghosts. Thanks to introductions by vital 80-year-old Donald Angus MacLean, we meet a group of individuals who claim to have had personal contact with those beyond the pale…

2. Second Sight: Hot Docs 2008 Festival Highlights Philip Marchand, Toronto Star
   

   A quietly beautiful study of old men in the Isle of Skye telling stories of uncanny phenomena such as a «ghost car» …The windswept landscape, the play of sunlight and shadow, and the evocative score in itself creates a mood conducive to second sight. Read More

3. Second Sight, Rating 9/10 Brooke Smith, Toronto Screen Shots
   

   Through the wit and charm of near-80 Donald Angus MacLean, filmmaker Alison McAlpine explores the oral tradition in northern Scotland on the Isle of Skye. Donald “Angie” is quite a character, an entertaining rogue with an eye for the ladies and an ear for a good story. A former preacher, Donald drives around the town in his red car (his name written across the trunk), his dog in the passenger seat, visiting a few of the island’s even more entertaining characters… Read More

4. “Ones to Watch” at Hotdocs 2008 Guy Dixon, The Globe and Mail
   

   One of the three films recommended by Guy Dixon

5. Very Hot Docs: Hot Docs festival’s excellent film experiences Ben Kempas, DOX, Documentary Film Magazine
   

   Second Sight is a film about loss and death. In its own magical way, the film captures many old men telling us about encounters with ghosts…The film evolves into a powerful poem…a beautifully-crafted visual layer of landscapes and journeys…

6. Second Sight **** Ross Miller, BlogCritics Magazine
   

   …Although the film follows Donald (one of the most endearing cinematic characters – real or fictional – to grace the screen in ages) as he talks to various people about ghostly visions, that’s not what’s at the heart of the film. It’s really about the nature of life and how the end of it is inevitable…a beautifully told tale…from the claims of ghostly visions down to the intimate daily routine of an old charmer who would make a routine trip to the shop a fascinating watch…with beautiful, elegant landscapes and peppered with the interesting characters that Donald comes across, this is a gloriously encapsulating motion picture told with admiration and love for the place in which it’s set.

7. Mill Valley Film Festival: Second Sight Walter Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle
   

   For residents of the remote Isle of Skye, seeing dead people isn’t all that extraordinary. At least that’s the implication of this delightful documentary by Canadian Alison McAlpine…The filmmaker mixes footage of the gorgeous and haunted Skye landscape with supernatural lore gleefully recounted by the island’s older inhabitants, such as the octogenarian ex-preacher Donald Angus MacLean, who introduces us to some of his equally idiosyncratic friends… Read More

8. Second Sight (TVOntario, 10pm on Human Edge) John Doyle, Globe and Mail
   

   …a gloriously good, gorgeous documentary… It’s about storytellers, ghosts, apparitions and the haunting, haunted landscape… It’s stunningly good.

9. DOCUMENTARIES: SECOND SIGHT Henrietta Walmark, Globe and Mail
   

   Alison McAlpine’s gorgeously introspective film, as wispy yet persistent as the mists hugging glens and moors, is the perfect autumn tale. With charmingly whimsical Donald Angus MacLean holding court, Second Sight is a story of ghosts, longing and leave-taking that is as potent as the primordial Isle of Skye…

10. Slamdance winners announced Michael Jones, Variety
    

    …The jury also singled out Alison McAlpine’s docu “Second Sight”…Special Jury Mention (for Documentary Features).

11. Second Sight *** (out of four) Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail
    

    The mist-heavy hills of the Isle of Skye and the ghosts that haunt them provide the sights and stories in this dark, cinematic docu-poem about death. Magically capturing what feels like the last ember of a vibrant culture, the film focuses on the eccentric, engaging Don Angie MacLean, a self-styled ghost-story collector and widower with a fetish for filing cabinets. With original music by John Gzowski, performed by the Madawaska String Quartet. Screened with the short Ex-Voto For Three Souls (Mexico). Cumberland, Apr. 18, 7 p.m.; Royal, Apr. 27, 7 p.m.

12. Ghost Stories… the 3rd Annual Guth Gafa Film Festival Danielle DiGiacomo, IndiePix Weblog
    

    …A work of languid and patient beauty, the film is about elderly men who live on the Isle of Skye in Scotland… Though ostensibly, the hook is that all of these men have “second sight” (the ability to see ghosts), it is a much larger meditation on dying – corporally, culturally, and linguistically. It was an unexpectedly beautiful and emotional film, with lessons about letting time take itself, rather than grabbing it and hijacking it for oneself.

13. Hot Docs Guide: Second Sight*** Guy Dixon, The Globe and Mail
    

    The film is as much a meditation on aging and the passage of time as a glimpse into the ghost stories of Scotland’s remote Isle of Skye. Our guide is an 80-year-old widower and preacher, whose idiosyncratic ways match those of other old folks in the area, who tell their wide-eyed stories as if they happened yesterday…There’s the astonishment in their faces, the lovely cadence in their words… like the apparitions they profess to have witnessed, the people of Skye stay with you for days after watching the film.

14. Second Sight Transcends Simple Ghost Stories. Poet’s First Film. John Griffin, Montreal Gazette
    

    An intimate documentary set on Scotland’s magnificent, mysterious Isle of Skye… it’s about ghosts. More specifically, it’s about the passing of the last generation raised in Gaelic without TV or electricity and entertained on long North Atlantic nights by oral tales passed down over centuries. Even more specifically, it’s about those people whose «second sight» allows them to cross from the world of the seen to the spirit world, people introduced to McAlpine by one man, an outsized character of 80 years named Donald Angus MacLean. It is a grand tale, told with restraint and love, and set against some of the most rugged, awesome and phenomena-friendly landscape on Earth…

15. The Ghostman of Skye, BBC Two Wonderland Damien Love, Glasgow Herald
    

    …a memorable, genuinely haunting film… Alison McAlpine weaves an extraordinary spell… (A 40 minute version of Second Sight, The Ghostman of Skye was Pick of the Day or Critics Choice in every major U.K. newspaper).

16. SECOND SIGHT is a beautifully made film Jan Rofekamp, Films Transit
    

    SECOND SIGHT is a beautifully made film with great wisdom, integrity and profoundness. It is also a living proof of the necessity of recording oral history. A timeless film.

17. SECOND SIGHT is cinematic storytelling Naomi Boxer, TVO Documentaries
    

    SECOND SIGHT is cinematic storytelling in its most elegant, quirky and profound form. It moves you and stays with you.

In Memory of

Donald Angus MacLean

(Dòmnhall Angaidh MacGilleathain)

Lachlan Mac an tòisich

Iain Moireasdan

Iain Ailig MacFhionghain

Effie Nicillinnein

Iain Mac Anndrais

And With:

Lachlan Mac Gilliosa

Frang and Peigi Wood

John McDiarmid

Hamish Murray

Liondsaidh Màiri Chaimbeul

Màiri Anna NicFhionghain

Lachlan Robasdan

Seonag NicAnndrais

Ronnie Muir

Chrissie Coran

Ceit NicDhiarmaid

and the people of the Isle of Skye

Executive Producers

PETER WINTONICK

JOHN WALKER

Cinematographers

JOHN WALKER

KIM DERKO

Additional Cinematography/Camera Assistant

JEREMY LYALL

Editor

ALISON McALPINE

Videography

ALISON McALPINE

Additional Videography

JEREMY LYALL, KIM DERKO, EMMA DAVIE

Composer

JOHN GZOWSKI

Sound Editors

GARRETT KERR

JOHN GZOWSKI

Re-Recording Mixers

LOU SOLAKOFSKI

KIRK LYNDS

Special Thanks

EMMA DAVIE

DOINA POPESCU

TORMOD MacGILLIOSA

ALEXANDRA ROCKINGHAM GILL

GEETA SONDHI

TIM MOODY

Foley Artist

STEVE HAMMOND

Location Sound Recordings

ALISON McALPINE

STEVE McNAMEE

Mix Assistant/Operator

MANDY LEY

On-Line Editors

ED RAFFERTY

FRANK BIASI

Colourist

ARLENE MOEKLER

Graphic Design

MANFRED NAESCHER

Production Managers

CHRIS CURRIE

EMMA DAVIE

Translations

OIGHRIG KEOGH

CAIRISTIONA PRIMROSE

SARAH A NICFHIONGHUIN

PATRICIA DAIGNEALT

Consulting Producer

MARTIN HARBURY

Additional Editing

DAVID MURRAY

Legal Counsel

TOBY LANG

Film and Video Post Facility

EYESPOST GROUP

Audio Post Facility

TATTERSALL SOUND AND PICTURE

Produced and Directed by

ALISON MCALPINE

Thank you

Cairistiona Primrose

Oighrig Keogh

M & D MacLeod Ltd

Jim Hardie

Al Macuilis;  Fearless Films

Amoghavira Dharmacari

Lou Solakofski and Kirk Lynds

Peter Mettler

Peggy Gale

Liondsaidh Màiri Chaimbeul

Joanne Rourke

Kemp Archibald

Andy Binnington

Jennifer Baichwal

Nick de Pencier

Roland Schlimme

David Wharensby

Peter Gibson

Goethe Institut Toronto

Iain MacLeod

Steve Munro

Long and McQuade

Louis Kramer

David Lee

Bronek Korda

Iain MacAuley

John Morrison

Original music recorded by John Gzowski

with the

Madawaska String Quartet

Sarah Fraser Raff

Rebecca van der Post

Anna Redekop

Amy Laing

Gaelic Psalm singing by

Donald MacSween, Scotland

Tech Consulting/Assistant Editing

Michael Bonini; Tim Hagen

Carbon Computing; Avril Jacobson

Ian Morehead;; John Sanders

Jim Blockland; Peter Sabat

Thank you

Seirbheis Nam Meabhanan Gaidhlig

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig

Té Bheag Gaelic Whisky

Apple Canada- Edited with Final Cut Pro

Kodak Canada

LACIE Canada

Produced with the Financial Participation of

Canada Council for the Arts;

HIE Skye and Wester Ross ;

Ontario Arts Council for the Arts;

TV Ontario

Produced by

Second Sight pictures inc

Produced with the support of

Necessary Illusions Productions

A Canada/Scotland production

www.alisonmcalpine.com

DOLBY DIGITAL

©second sight pictures inc 2008