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Nick Higgins

Nick Higgins

History

Nick Higgins is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, academic and curator. He is the founder and programme leader of the Masters Filmmaking degree at the University of the West of Scotland where he is the Director of the Creative Media Academy and Professor in Screen Practice. His most recent documentary production, Colours of the Alphabet was translated into 30 languages and digitally released across Africa on the Afridocs platform. Previous productions include the BAFTA Scotland nominated mass participation documentary, We Are Northern Lights and the multi-director, The New Ten Commandments with contributions from Tilda Swinton, Marc Cousins and Irvine Welsh. His films have been broadcast on the BBC, STV, Al Jazeera, SVT (Sweden), YLE (Finland), ZDF (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), VPRO (the Netherlands) and have picked up awards at film festivals internationally. Over the last couple of years Nick has also produced several interactive documentaries on the uws.io web platform and in 2017 he directed and produced his first 360 virtual reality documentary. Since then Nick has co-curated the Virtual Reality programme at the Glasgow Short Film Festival (2017 & 2019) and was the executive producer on the KristallPalast interactive VR experience produced with the award-winning ISO digital design studio. Prior to joining UWS, Professor Higgins was a senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh where founded the Trans-disciplinary Documentary Film Phd programme and the MA in Media, Culture and Practice. He is a regular contributor to BAFTA Scotland and Royal Television Society film and television juries and has previously been a member of the documentary jury at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. He sits on the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities executive and the Independent Producers Scotland board.

Profile

Nick Higgins

Movies

Executive Producer

Veronique is a social realist drama picturing a day in the life of a teenage girl and her mentally ill mother. How does the mother’s borderline personality disorder affect their relationship and how does it feel for a teenage girl to be the person in charge?

Executive Producer

A superstitious widow looks at the stars every night in the hope of understanding her late husband's last words to her. Meanwhile a homeless man discovers some interesting items discarded in a bin.

Executive Producer

Facing a problematic creative block, Harrison embarks on a journey to Glen Coe with his best friend in order to reignite his artistic imagination.

Colours of the Alphabet

Colours of the Alphabet

Producer

It is estimated that 40% of the world’s population lack the opportunity to be educated in their own language. In Colours of the Alphabet we get an insight into the challenges this poses as we follow a group of first graders in Zambia – a country with 72 local languages where education is primarily offered in English.

We Are Northern Lights

We Are Northern Lights

Producer

How do you capture the essence of Scotland in just one film? You invite people from all across the country to submit their unique visions in a mass participation project and combine them into a poignant, thrilling, moving, and often very funny impressionistic self portrait of contemporary Scotland.

We Are Northern Lights

We Are Northern Lights

Director

How do you capture the essence of Scotland in just one film? You invite people from all across the country to submit their unique visions in a mass participation project and combine them into a poignant, thrilling, moving, and often very funny impressionistic self portrait of contemporary Scotland.

The New Ten Commandments

The New Ten Commandments

Producer

The film was produced by Nick Higgins from Lansdowne Productions and Noémie Mendelle from the Scottish Documentary Institute and has 10 film-chapter directors for each of the 10 chapters of the film. The film's unifying theme is human rights in Scotland with each chapter illustrating one of the "New Ten Commandments" - 10 articles chosen from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 10 film chapters of The New Ten Commandments 1. The Right to Freedom of Assembly - Dir, David Graham Scott 2. The Right not to be enslaved - Dir, Nick Higgins 3. The Right to a fair trial - Dir, Sana Bilgrami 4. The Right to freedom of expression - Dir, Doug Aubrey 5. The Right to life - Dir, Kenny Glenaan 6. The Right to liberty - Dir, Irvine Welsh & Mark Cousins 7. The Right not to be tortured - Dir, Douglas Gordon 8. The Right to asylum - Dir, Anna Jones 9. The Right to privacy - Dir, Alice Nelson 10. The Right to freedom of thought - Dir, Mark Cousins & Tilda Swinton.

The New Ten Commandments

The New Ten Commandments

Director

The film was produced by Nick Higgins from Lansdowne Productions and Noémie Mendelle from the Scottish Documentary Institute and has 10 film-chapter directors for each of the 10 chapters of the film. The film's unifying theme is human rights in Scotland with each chapter illustrating one of the "New Ten Commandments" - 10 articles chosen from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 10 film chapters of The New Ten Commandments 1. The Right to Freedom of Assembly - Dir, David Graham Scott 2. The Right not to be enslaved - Dir, Nick Higgins 3. The Right to a fair trial - Dir, Sana Bilgrami 4. The Right to freedom of expression - Dir, Doug Aubrey 5. The Right to life - Dir, Kenny Glenaan 6. The Right to liberty - Dir, Irvine Welsh & Mark Cousins 7. The Right not to be tortured - Dir, Douglas Gordon 8. The Right to asylum - Dir, Anna Jones 9. The Right to privacy - Dir, Alice Nelson 10. The Right to freedom of thought - Dir, Mark Cousins & Tilda Swinton.