Boireannaich Allta
Logline: A group of women of varying climbing backgrounds develop new boulders in Torridon in the Scottish Highlands while exploring how outdoor bouldering can become more welcoming and accessible, culminating in community open days inviting local women to experience Scottish climbing and development firsthand.
Why This Film Matters Now: Bouldering is one of the fastest-growing forms of climbing worldwide, yet outdoor participation can still feel intimidating or inaccessible to many newcomers — particularly women entering spaces traditionally shaped by performance-focused culture. Boireannaich Allta documents a grassroots shift already happening within climbing: a movement away from exclusivity and toward participation, curiosity, and shared experience. Rather than focusing on elite achievement, the film highlights the process of learning, building, and welcoming new climbers into outdoor spaces. The story culminates in a public open day in the Scottish Highlands, where women from across the region are invited to climb newly developed boulders and learn the fundamentals of outdoor climbing and development in a supportive environment. This project is capturing climbing culture expanding, but not upwards in difficulty, rather outwards in accessibility. Also, since the film is set in the Scottish Highlands, it is necessary to incorporate a discussion around the resurgence of Gaelic language into the film, hence the title Boireannaich Allta, which means wild women in Gaelic.
Director’s note: I have been madly in love with climbing for the past 16 years. Yes, we have fought and bickered; had our grievances and disputes, but she is mine, just as I am hers, and I can’t help but wish something similar to my relationship with climbing onto everyone I meet, as it is the most beautiful constant that my life holds. This film will introduce outdoor climbing to new people, which I have come to realize is my career goal. To be a filmmaker is to spread your passion with others, and I know how positively transformative outdoor climbing can be to one’s life. At the root of the film is female friendship, love, and community.
I’ve gathered some of my favorite humans from across the UK and Spain to take a chance on me and this dream I have: to birth some beautiful boulders into the climbing zeitgeist and talk about the barriers we have faced as women in this sport. This film is about women historically being left out of route development, the barriers of entry for women to get into bouldering, and the lack of research around women’s health, with two key protagonists in the film having PCOS and Endometriosis, but just as much as this film is about the woes of our sport and the issues we’re fighting to fix, the film is simultaneously about the childlike play of being in the outdoors, spreading love for climbing to the broader community in the highlands, and breaking down the class barriers that are making climbing increasingly more inaccessible.
Through partnerships with local guides, climbing walls, and businesses, my main hope for this film is to paint a positive picture of climbing in the minds of locals and to help them see it as something that can benefit them mentally, physically, and economically. As a comp climber, I wanted to make a film that is the antithesis of your average climbing film about sending a hard boulder or winning a huge comp. This film is about community. This film is about love. This film is about women.