Shackleton on the set of In The Fall

Behind the scenes of Scottish independent film In The Fall as they film in the Orkney Isles in winter, equipped in Shackleton apparel.

In The Fall is the adaptation of a classic short story by acclaimed Canadian writer Alistair MacLeod. The film was mostly crowdfunded and helmed by producers with experience working at Netflix and the BBC, protected by the hands of Glasgow-based production company Gentle Giant. It’s a stripped-back period drama that unfolds on a remote peninsula of the Scottish Orkney Isles, set in the 1920s.

The story pivots around a family of Celtic-origin as they confront the painful moment of sending their working horse to the knacker’s yard. The horse now costs more to keep than it brings in and so the father is faced with a brutal reality: what breaks our hearts is necessary for survival.

The film is slow-moving and hard-hitting. The camera sweeps through the family interplay in a fluid, continuous motion, catching sparse notes of dialogue and drinking in the isolation that rolls down from the sheer mountains and crashes inwards with the waves.

The Shackleton team was excited to join the project, drawn in by the wild, atmospheric setting of the peninsula and also the raw subject matter. We sent Shackleton Endurance Parkas to Producer/Director Tom Gentle and members of the crew. Wardrobe requested a Shackleton Sweater for the young lead actor, Lewis McGowan, accentuating his connection to his father.

“The conditions were bitter," says Gentle. "I wore the Endurance non-stop, it was so important to have such high quality gear out there.”

The project has been supported by novelist Margaret Atwood and also received donations from the likes of Canadian comedian Norm MacDonald and British comedian Alan Davies.