Jenny Gilbertson

Jenny Gilbertson (born Jenny Brown; 28 October 1902 – 8 January 1990) was a Scottish documentary and educational filmmaker. She studied at Laurel Bank School, then furthered her education at Glasgow University where she earned an MA in teaching. Her relationship with films started after she went to London for a secretarial course in journalism in 1929. She concluded that educational and documentary style filmmaking was for her after she saw an amateur film about the Scottish Loch Lomond in London; which resulted in her purchasing her first 16mm camera. Gilbertson met native Shetlander farmer Johnny Gilbertson while filming one of her earlier films, Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric, where Gilbertson played the lead in the story-documentary film. They married shortly after the completion of the film, in 1934. It was not until after retiring from a teacher position that she entered her second phase of filmmaking.

Career Following her purchase of a 16mm camera, Gilbertson went to the archipelagos of Shetland in 1931. This is when she made her first film A Crofter's Life in Shetland and invited Scottish documentary maker John Grierson to watch it. and supported her by encouraging her to purchase a more advanced camera. She then purchased a 35mm Eyemo, and made five more films in Shetland; all of which Grierson bought for the GPO Film Unit (General Post Office Film Unit).

All the films Gilbertson had made during her filmmaking career were focused on embracing nature, farming life, fishing, families that did such activities and anything that captured the environment she was in.