When the Subject Fights Back: Inside 'Douglas Gordon By Douglas Gordon' at Edinburgh
A documentary about a Turner Prize-winning artist screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival this week — but the man on screen had no intention of staying behind the camera's gaze.
'Douglas Gordon By Douglas Gordon', directed by Finlay Pretsell, had its UK premiere at Filmhouse Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (Instagram, 10 August 2026). The 87-minute UK/France co-production, distributed by Autlook Films, had its world premiere earlier this year in the Berlinale's Panorama section on 17 February 2026 (Berlinale). Screen Scotland lists it among films made in Scotland (Screen Scotland).
Gordon is the Scottish artist behind '24 Hour Psycho', which slows Hitchcock's film to a single frame every half-second, and 'Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait', a 17-camera study of one footballer across a full match. Both works reframe how an audience watches time and movement on a screen (Deadline, 17 August 2026).
The documentary is set entirely within Gordon's Berlin studio (Sonja Henrici). But Gordon refused to be a passive subject. He actively fought Pretsell for authorship of the story, turning what might have been a conventional artist profile into a contest over who controls the narrative (Deadline, 17 August 2026).
The project began with a phone call from Berlin. Gordon, speaking in a Scottish accent, rang Pretsell out of the blue and asked what they should make together (Deadline, 17 August 2026). The two had first crossed paths roughly 20 years earlier at the Edinburgh Film Festival, but had never collaborated.
Pretsell spent about a year recording conversations with Gordon at various times of day before he was granted access to the studio. Those recordings became critical to the film's arc, building a portrait through voice before the camera ever enters the workspace (Deadline, 17 August 2026).
For Pretsell, the connection to Gordon's work runs deeper than a single commission. He has cited 'Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait' as his biggest inspiration to make films (Deadline, 17 August 2026). His first feature was 'Time Trial' (2017), a documentary following Scottish cyclist David Millar through his final year as a professional rider at the Tour de France.
The film is produced by Sonja Henrici and Pretsell, with Estelle Robin You as co-producer (Screen Scotland). The Edinburgh festival lists the screening as rated 18+ with an 88-minute runtime (Edinburgh International Film Festival).
What makes the film stand out is its central tension. Most documentaries about artists keep the subject at arm's length — the director frames, the subject sits. Here, Gordon grabs for the steering wheel, and the film becomes a record of that struggle rather than a tidy career survey.
