The mysterious box of the title was washed up on a remote beach in the Outer Hebrides. Once touched it is said to have the power to change lives. Given to the writer Iain Sinclair almost thirty years ago, the film tracks the 800 mile reverse pilgrimage from London back to the Isle of Harris, in the company of the film-maker Andrew Kötting.

The WHALEBONE BOX sees Andrew Kötting reuniting with Iain Sinclair for another remarkable collaboration after their critically acclaimed and ground breaking journeyworks: SWANDOWN, BY OUR SELVES and EDITH WALKS. This time Andrew’s daughter, Eden Kötting, narrates the story, working as both muse and soothsayer. She transports us into a world of wonder to a place that the audience has never been before. 

Andrew Kötting’s film is characteristically playful and inventive. Incorporating elements of archive and pinhole photography the film is shot using primarily super 8 and super 8 apps. 

Prepare for something strange and unexpected.

"You can feel the ghost of Derek Jarman in Kötting’s work: the use of collage; the investigation of memory; the allusions to Shakespeare’s The Tempest; the deconstruction of cinema itself. Yet, The Whalebone Box has something even more personal in its subtle exploration of the bond between father and daughter, an expression of love that had me laughing one moment and crying the next. With such a tender, beating heart, this is in some ways Kötting’s most unexpectedly accessible work. And, as Eden says more than once in her subtitled voiceover: “It’s true!” - Mark Kermode, The Guardian.