Inverness Film Festival

4 Nov 2004 in Festival, Film, Highland

Celebrating the Big Screen

MICHAEL McDAID tells the Arts Journal what lies ahead for movie fans in the second Inverness Film Festival

THE INVERNESS FILM FESTIVAL will feature seven Scottish premiere screenings in the course of a five-day celebration of the art and craft of film making, including the first chance to see Zak Penn’s Incident at Loch Ness, featuring German film director Werner Herzog.

The new locally-filmed ‘mockumentary’ will close the festival (15 November). The opening premiere will be I Heart Huckabees (a little heart symbol replaces the word – cute or what?), a new comic movie from David O. Russell (Spanking The Monkey, Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings), starring Dustin Hoffman, Jude Law, Lily Tomlin and Isabelle Huppert.

Michael McDaid, the director of the festival, has fought hard to have both these films at the festival.

“We are really delighted to have the first Scottish screening of Huckabees, and we feel that Incident at Loch Ness is sure to create a lot of interest in this area! There are over 20 screenings in all, and we have added an extra day to the event this year. We are aiming to provide something that will interest as wide an audience as possible.

“Most of the screenings will take place at Eden Court, with the premieres in the main auditorium, but we are also screening films at the Vue multiplex, and we have brought the Columba Hotel on board this year as well – they will host the festival club as a place in the centre of town where people could get together and meet the festival guests and chat about films with other people involved in the festival or the workshops we are running.”

The other premieres in the programme are Dear Frankie, written by Andrea Gibb and directed by Shona Auerbach, a Scottish film that revolves around the dilemma of a mother who has left her abusive husband, but told her young son he is away at sea. What to do then, when the boy spots that the ship his father is allegedly on is due to dock in Glasgow?

“It promises to be a strong line-up to build on last year’s inaugural event.”

Another Scot, Danny Boyle, directed Millions, in which two young boys stumble on a quarter of a million pounds from a bank robbery, but have only one week to spend it before the UK goes over entirely to the Euro and the money becomes worthless.

Garden State is the writing and directorial debut of Zach Braff, star of television’s Scrubs. Peter Mullen stars in Criminal, an American remake of the Argentine film Nine Queens, while My House in Umbria stars Maggie Smith and has a rare non-comedy role for Ronnie Barker. Vanity Fair is a new film version of Thackeray’s classic novel.

The festival will also feature An Audience with Barry Norman (12 November) at Eden Court, in which the noted film critic will talk about his experiences amongst the good, the bad and the ugly of the film world.

The programme will again include screenings of classic films, including Night of the Hunter, Doctor Zhivago, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Leopard and La Belle et La Bête. Short films will also feature in the festival, including a series of films made on digital equipment around Scotland, and the latest batch of Tartan Shorts.

Many of the makers of the films will be around at the festival, and there will also be a number of workshops, including a workshop on short films aimed at younger people, another on animation, and one on scriptwriting.

It promises to be a strong line-up to build on last year’s inaugural event. Setting up a film festival was not his priority when Michael took up his post at the Eden Court Theatre early in 2002, but evolved gradually from his work in restoring the fortunes of the theatre’s Riverside Cinema.

“The feedback we had from audiences last year was very good – we had very good attendances, and people have been asking when the next one is, which is very encouraging for us. With Eden Court expanding and the Year of Highland Culture coming up in 2007, we are looking to continue to build the festival gradually each year.

“We have gone for an extra day this year, and we will see how that goes – it always has to be a case of testing what audiences want. We are hoping that we can move on from last year’s good start and continue to build the festival.”

The Inverness Film Festival runs from 11-15 November 2004. Full programme details are available on the festival website.