The Weavers: beautifully shot mini-doc about Scotland’s dying textile industry

5 Stars

Weavers, directed by Callum McCulloch-Nowlan, is a beautifully shot mini-doc about Scotland’s dying textile industry and the role it plays in knitting a national identity.Taken at face value, the documentary is composed of gorgeous images of tweed and tartan fabric being plied and pulled together on centuries-old looms, worked by people almost as old as their machines. ‘I started working here for 18 shillings a week,’ says an eponymous weaver towards the middle of the film. A younger apprentice, perhaps in his 30s, acknowledges he has no frame of reference for how much money that is in today’s world.

As The Weavers goes on, its charm belies the hints it places that Scottish tartan and tweed weaving is a dying tradition. ‘Imagine using superglue on a hundred-year-old machine,’ says one of the older weavers. It becomes apparent just how old these looms are, and that new technologies have been created without the intention of participating in this craft. It’s revealed that nearly all the knowledge to operate these looms is contained in the 83-year-old man who spoke those words. Suddenly this old mill is much more fragile than it seems, and the art of weaving with it.

Each tartan holds the identity of the clan that wears it. There are machine looms that can create the same patterns using similar techniques, but The Weavers reminds us that if the tradition is taken out of human hands, Scotland loses some of that identity. This homely documentary pays tribute to one of Scotland’s most essential crafts and ties a shrinking industry to the fabric of the nation.

The Weavers received its world premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival 2026 in the Out of Competition Shorts