Stones: The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Scottish Stonelifting has been been in production since Summer 2021. It will be Maximum Iron's first feature length film. It tells the enthralling story of Scottish stonelifting. Going back to stonelifting’s inception, and exploring the possibilities of it being much older. It looks at the varying reasons stones were lifted, and the purposes behind them. Taking you to the peak of Scottish stonelifting, when there were hundreds of lifting stones. The documentary examines religion’s disdain for stonelifting, and how stonelifting started to decline. Immense greed fuelled atrocities, that lasted over 100 years, destroyed Scottish culture; murdering and removing anyone who stood in the way. Stonelifting was basically wiped out. As the Highland clearances came to an end stonelifting started to reemerge. Stones that had been used for business, as counterbalances or weights for measurement were used for lifting. Stonelifting clung on, but two wars saw an end to stonelifting in Scotland…
One man revived stonelifting, and inadvertently inspired two other men. These three would change stonelifting forever. More and more lost stones were rediscovered. Scottish stones were used in the World’s Strongest Man Final. Knowledge of Scotland’s rich stonelifting past became more widespread. It has slowly grown over the years, especially when Rogue released ‘Stoneland’. Stonelifting’s rise looks like it has much further to go.
Filming began on the 11th of September 2021. We went to Scotland’s Strongest Man, and witnessed The Nicol Walking Stones World Record being broken. We have now been back to Scotland filming numerous times. This journey has taken us over the sea, through rivers, up mountains and to every corner of Scotland. Through sleet and snow, soaking showers, and scorching sun. We have filmed the majority of stones, and countless stonelifters; such as: Jamie Gorrian, Brett Nicol, Martin Jancsics, Mark Sherriffs, Jamie Duncan, John Gibb, Conor Curran, Chris Beetham, Stevie Shanks, Andrew Cairney, Izzy Tait, Hannah Linzay, Andy Crawford, Michael Brown and many more.
We have also been lucky enough to film with some of the world's best strongmen.
• Tom Stoltman
• Luke Stoltman
• Martins Licis
• Laurence Shahlaei
Filming finishes in Spring, and the editing will begin. The Film will be finished in early Summer, with the aim of having a cinema premiere shortly after. This will be in a Scottish cinema, in the highlands. If possible there may be further showings at different cinemas, giving more people the chance of seeing this on the big screen. After the cinema premiere the digital download/streaming version of the film will be available for sale, and to people who have pre-ordered. A few months after the release we will upload a shorter, free, version to our YouTube channel.