Director Biography – Glenda Rome
Glenda Rome is a Scottish filmmaker whose cinematic work bridges art, environmental and human connection. For over two decades she has worked internationally on documentaries and community projects — from collaborating with Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian rainforest and Iñupiat people in Alaska, to helping young and under-represented voices tell their own stories through film.
Now based near Edinburgh, Glenda’s work has come full circle with her debut feature, Expressing the Earth — a poetic exploration of Scotland’s landscapes and the philosophy of geopoetics. Drawing on her years of experience amplifying the voices of others, she turns her lens inward, towards the land that shaped her, creating a deeply reflective film about belonging, perception, and the living relationship between people and place.
Director Statement
The first time I encountered the work of Scottish poet and thinker Kenneth White, I felt as though someone had found words for what I had always sensed in wild places — that profound stillness where the mind and the land seem to speak the same language.
My introduction to White came through the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, who were hoping to make a short film. From the moment I read his words, I knew this was the story I had always wanted to tell — one that gives voice to the quiet dialogue between people and the Earth.
When Kenneth passed away in 2023, halfway through filming, the project took on new meaning. What began as a short film, evolved into a full-length documentary — a film that seeks not only to honour his extraordinary legacy, but to continue the conversation he began.
Expressing the Earth is, for me, an act of listening — to landscape, to poetry, to the spaces in between. It’s about finding new ways of seeing and expressing our connection to the living world, at a time when that connection feels more fragile than ever. I hope the film invites reflection, and perhaps a quiet remembering — that to truly express the Earth, we must first learn to listen to it.
