Hidden Gifts: The Mystery of Angus McPhee

Directed by Nick Higgins

Hidden Gifts is a creative documentary that explores the mystery of art and mental illness. It tells the story of Angus MacPhee, “the quiet big man” from South Uist, who wove clothes from grass. Diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1946 Angus was taken from his island home on South Uist to Craig Dunain psychiatric hospital among the hills near Inverness in the Scottish highlands. For fifty years he spoke not a single word to any member of the hospital staff. His presence was also an absence; his secret grass weaving his only form of expression.