The Shepherds of Berneray and Returning to Berneray
Director(s): Allen Moore
Film description: In 1981 Allen Moore completed “The Shepherds of Berneray,” a study of the centuries-old crofting traditions of the island of Berneray, and a portrait of the Gaelic speaking people whose lives reflected the underpinnings of this heritage. Moore has continued a decades-long friendship with the islanders, and beginning in 2016, he spent 10 years revisiting the community to document what traditions have remained and how life has changed on the island. Weaving together 16mm outtakes from the late 1970’s with contemporary HD digital material, “Returning to Berneray” is a personal portrait of a place and a filmmaker’s relationship to it.
“The Shepherds of Berneray” (55 min) plays together with “Returning to Berneray” (60 min)
ERIC SAYS You’d be hard-pressed to find a working filmmaker in town who hasn’t been touched by the life and work of native Baltimorean Allen Moore. Whether as the director of beautifully crafted 16mm experimental films and short docs (several of which have screened at New/Next), as the cinematographer of world-renowned documentaries (including The Civil War, Baseball, and several other Ken Burns series), or as a film professor (at MICA and other esteemed institutions), Moore’s contributions to film culture in Baltimore and beyond are hard to overstate. And yet, several of his own key documentary works have remained criminally under-seen.
New/Next aims to help change that with this pair of beautiful documentaries. 1981’s The Shepherds of Berneray, co-directed with Jack Shea, offers a beautiful and thoughtful look at traditional life on a quiet Scottish isle, approaching its subject immersively as would better-known films like Sweetgrass decades later. 2026’s follow-up, Returning to Berneray, visits the locations, personages, and children of the original, with great insight into what has changed (and what hasn’t) over the intervening years. Together, they offer an edifying study of the effect of decades on lives and land not unlike Michael Apted’s 7 Up series. We’re proud to world-premiere both this sequel and the restoration of the original work by this gifted and important Baltimore filmmaker.
Writer(s): Allen Moore
Producer(s): Allen Moore
Editor(s): Allen Moore
Country of origin: USA
Principal cast: The community of Berneray in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland
Language: English and Scottish Gaelic
Year: 2026
Duration: 115 min
Premiere status: World Premiere
