Paul Wright is a Scottish filmmaker from Fife, whose work has always had a raw, poetic edge. He trained at Glasgow's RSAMD before landing a place on the National Film and Television School's MA in Directing Fiction. His early shorts made a real splash: Hikikomori picked up a BAFTA Scotland win, Believe won the Golden Leopard at Locarno, and Until the River Runs Red took Best Short at the BAFTAs. His short Photos of God screened at Encounters in 2010. His 2013 debut feature For Those in Peril, shot in a small Aberdeenshire fishing village with George MacKay, premiered at Cannes Critics' Week and won him the BIFA Douglas Hickox Award for Best Debut Director. He followed it with Arcadia in 2017, a striking archive documentary about Britain's relationship with the land, which also screened at Encounters alongside festivals including BFI London Film Festival and Doc Fortnight at MoMA. Wright has now reunited with George MacKay for Mission, which world premiered at Edinburgh in August 2026. Encounters is proud to present the film's English premiere, the second ever screening.
