Reflective Encounters

“No matter our best intentions, an older generation will always end up complaining about a younger one. “They spend their time glued to their phones,” they cry. “We used to be out from morning until sunset playing football,” they lament. For all these rose-tinted glorifications of times gone by, it’s easy to forget that many children spend their time indoors simply because they don’t actually have anywhere to play.

While this examination of Glasgow’s Children’s Wood – giving young children who have little or no access to green spaces safe places to play – might initially seem little more than a PSA, on closer examination there is something much more profound going on here. In following the children on the site as they play, director Helen McCrorie exposes us to the hopes, dreams and desires of these youngsters and shows how play and fantasy help pave the way for a better understanding of the world as well as fostering togetherness.

As the noise of the children playing becomes more chaotic with film moving towards its end, what could be a cacophony turns into a hymn of joy, a paean to the necessity of play and a reminder that – if we want out children to experience the outdoors – we must help them find those spaces in the first place.”

— Laurence Boyce