Emma Davie runs the postgraduate department in Film which specialises in documentary making. Her research area is documentary filmmaking. Her work explores approaches to narrative structure and form and uses collaboration as a tool for experimentation. Her most recent film is the feature documentary “Becoming Animal” (2018). Co-directed with Swiss-Canadian director and cinematographer Peter Mettler, it proposes a different kind of nature film: one which traces the act of seeing. Travelling to the Gran Teton Park with philosopher David Abram, it examines our shifting relationship to what we call “nature”. It opened at CPH DOX and has been nominated for many international awards including Best Documentary at CPH DOX, Edinburgh Film Festival, Documenta Madrid, Docs Agains Gravity and has played at many other international festivals including IDFA, Jihlava, RIDM, Montreal as well as obtaining cinema release in Switzerland, Canada, UK and Germany.
Her previous feature documentary "I am Breathing" (2012) was co-directed with fiction film maker Morag Mckinnon. It continues her interest in how collaboration informs the process including a central collaboration with Neil Platt, the subject of the film. It has won or been nominated for many awards including three Scotland BAFTAs in 2013. Emma also collaborates as a story editor/ consultant on various films including the new film by Syrian filmmaker Diana El Jeroudhi.
She has been making documentaries for 15 years including "What Age Can You Start Being An Artist?" for Channel 4 (2004, nominated for Grierson Award); "Gigha: Buying Our Island (2002)", a one-hour film for BBC/Scottish Screen; and "Flight", a BBC/Canadian co-production (2000). She has also directed short experimental work including "71˚N." ( nominated for Best short EIFF). Emma's background in experimental theatre and performance gave her a background in questioning form and a deep understanding and belief in collaborative creative practice. She started and ran Clanjamfrie which did large-scale site-specific performances combining film and live performance. She worked with, amongst others, Robert LePage on Tectonic Plates which she acted in. Emma studied English at Oxford University and theatre in Paris with Phillipe Gaulier. In 2013 she was named as one of Canongate’s Future 40 “multi-disciplinary artists they’re banking on to define the next 4 decades.”