in development

Out of Bounds is a hybrid documentary that unearths the buried legacy of Glasgow’s Lock Hospital—a 19th-century institution that confined so-called "fallen women" under the guise of controlling sexually transmitted diseases. What begins as a student’s personal journey into the city’s forgotten past slowly unfolds into an encounter with restless ghosts and unsettling questions.

Blending ghost story, investigative documentary, performance, and cityscape, Out of Bounds traces how institutions have turned care into control, and healing into punishment. It reveals a city trying to seal off its sexual past behind sandstone facades, soot-covered brickwork, and layers of institutional violence.

Out of Bounds asks: who gets to tell history? What happens when we reclaim the stories of those who were never listened to in the first place? And how do these buried histories continue to haunt the present, inscribed in the memory of the body?

Key Creatives

Alongside director and writer Awadalla, Out of Bounds is shaped by a powerful team of collaborators. Cinematographer Julian Curico brings a sensitive visual approach that weaves observational realism with lyrical abstraction. DJ and composer Majdolen creates the film’s haunting original score, blending ambient textures with emotional resonance. Sound design is led by Banu Çiçek Tülü, a sound artist and researcher whose practice explores sonic memory and urban transformation. Visual artist and performer Chao-Ying Rao contributes not only as an actor but also as a collaborator in crafting the film’s stylised reenactments. Set designer David Sneddon helps evoke the layered history of the Lock Hospital site, grounding the film’s theatrical elements in atmospheric detail. Together, the team animates a film that is sensorially rich, politically urgent, and formally adventurous.

Synopsis

When a student moves to Glasgow to study the history of sexual shame, they expect official archives and routine lecture halls, not footsteps in empty corridors and whispers at midnight. A chance encounter with a local woman changes everything. She reveals that their new home stands on the site of a haunted hospital, where women deemed ‘fallen’ were confined, condemned, and experimented on. As the student and their unlikely ally dig deeper into the city’s sexual past, they uncover not only the suffering endured there but also the voices that once dared to resist. Now, together, they must carry these histories into the light — and face the ghosts that refuse to rest.