Page 14 - 16_Bafta ACADEMY_Samantha Morton_ok

BAFTA Scotland
BAFTA Scotland’s Director, Alison Forsyth, writes on this year’s unmissable Edinburgh experience
Our tradition at the Edinburgh International Film Festival
nations and regions
Over the years BAFTA Scotland has provided a platform at the EIFF for some of the world’s most colour- ful and influential screen industry players. The impressive list includes – David Puttnam, Lindsay Anderson, John McGrath, Michael Winner, Antonia Bird, Michael Caton-Jones, David Mamet and Alan Rickman. This year we will be hosting another exciting event on Sunday 18 August at 3.30pm.
All members are welcome but tickets traditionally sell out very quickly so watch our web- sites for the hot details www.baftascotland.co.uk or www.edfilmfest.org.uk or you can contact the Edinburgh International Film Festival’s Credit Card line on 0131 623 8030.
FEestival Time
very August our romantic and historic capital city pro- vides an architecturally stun- ning backdrop to the largest arts and culture festival in the world.
In fact, it is made up of about nine individual Festivals taking place at the same time and nat- urally the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Guardian International Television Festival are of paramount interest to BAFTA members. Thousands of exotic performers, artists and tourists swell the city to bursting point every August and the atmosphere alone intoxicates and inspires.
Edinburgh hosts the longest running continuous International Film Festival in the world and 2002 will be the 56th year. Scotland’s knight Sir Sean Connery has been the patron for 10 years and, despite his normally heavy filming schedule he usually manages to attend the festival and some of the events.
As a showcase for new talent, both home grown and interna- tional, the EIFF is unsurpassed. This year, we are particularly pleased that the Scottish director Lynne Ramsay’s latest film Morvern Callar, will open the festival.
Adapted from Alan Warner’s cult novel of the same name, new festival director Shane Danielsen, believes this mesmeris- ing film to be the best of British this year “from one of the most gifted filmmakers of her generation.”
Back in 1998, Lynn’s first short film, Gasman, won the Kodak
prize at the BAFTA Scotland New Talent Awards. At the BAFTA UK Film Awards in 2000, Lynne was the recipient of the Carl Foreman Award for her debut screenplay and direction of Ratcatcher, a unique film that lent a cinematic poetry to its gritty Glasgow setting.
The British feature film line up at this year’s festival is extraordi- nary and there is plenty of Scottish talent to be found throughout the UK section. The classic Scottish character actress Celia Imrie stars in the latest com- edy from East Is East director Damien O’Donnell. Heartlands tells the tale of lost love, scooters and Eric Bristow!
Alistair Mackenzie, from TV’s Monarch Of The Glen, stars in his brother David’s debut feature The Last Great Wilderness along- side David Hayman, Ewan Stewart and Ford. It’s a powerful resonant drama and so not sur- prising then that Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton were keen to be in MacKenzie’s follow-up fea- ture, Young Adam, which was filmed in Glasgow earlier this year.
Major actor Robert Carlyle returns to his Glasgow roots – and accent – in Once Upon A Time In The Midlands, latest offering from director Shane (A Room For Romeo Brass) Meadows. Young Scottish actress Shirley Henderson ably plays one side of the eternal triangle – the other two being made up by Carlyle in rugged form and Welsh comic genius Rhys Ifans. Davie McKay and Jimmy Cosmo join forces as the knockabout Glasgow villains and
the rest of the brilliant cast includes none other than Kathy Burke and Ricky Tomlinson.
The Full Monty screenwriter Simon Beaufoy has scripted a new digitally shot drama set in the Scottish countryside. This Is Not A Love Song, cast by the talented young Scottish agent Victoria Beattie, is directed by Billie Eltringham and stars Scots actor/director Kenny Glenaan in this deadly cat-and-mouse drama.
Yet more British talent (like the absolutely great Timothy Spall) will be seen in Mike Leigh’s All Or Nothing and Eastenders’ Tamzin Outhwaite plays a struggling sin- gle mother in Out Of Control, director Dominic Savage’s follow up to his award-winning When I Was Twelve.
Alex Cox’s Revenger’s Tragedy, with Derek Jacobi and Eddie Izzard and Tomorrow La Scala, Francesca Joseph’s gritty prison-musical complete the list of British Gala screenings, UK and World premieres which will be a major attraction this year.
Photos from left: Stills from Morvern Callar; This Is Not A Love Song; Once Upon A Time In The Midlands; Festival Director Shane Danielsen; View of Edinburgh Castle
12