Twenty years ago every child on the east coast of Scotland knew who Jocky Wilson was. The best darts player of all time. The world champion. A national and folk hero. But since 1995 he has been paying the price for his self-destruction. Illness, isolation, depression. The rise and fall of this working class hero, not unlike those seen in pop music, is reflected in parallel to the decline of the region and of his home, the coal-mining town of Kirkaldy.
About the artist
Julian Schwanitz, born 1982 in Aachen, works mainly as a cinematographer for fiction and documentary, and earned a BAFTA New Talent Award for his cinematography on the short film DISCO in 2011. He began studying cinematography in Dortmund and later relocated to Scotland where he continued his studies in film and photography. Fascinated by the documentary genre he enrolled for a postgraduate degree in documentary directing at the Edinburgh College of Art. “Kirkcaldy Man” is his graduation film and won the Golden Dove for Best International Short Documentary at its world premier at the 54th DOK Leipzig in 2011. In 2012 the film earned him a further BAFTA New Talent Award for best documentary under 30 minutes.
No Point Climbing Down (2009)
