Imagining Communities

ALLAN HUNTER looks ahead to this year’s programme.

IF THE Scottish Executive were ever to appoint a minister for film then there could be no better candidate than Tilda Swinton. In the course of the past year, the Oscar-winning star has become the patron saint of Scottish film culture.

Not content with her role as patron of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, she has thrown herself wholeheartedly into the creation of the Ballerina Ballroom of Dreams event in Nairn, and now she is the star guest of this month’s 6th Inverness Film Festival.

Swinton will attend a special screening of her dazzling classic Orlando from 1992, and the Festival will also present the Scottish premiere of Julia, an epic drama in which Swinton gives a bravura performance as an alcoholic who becomes embroiled in a plot to kidnap and ransom a young boy.

Announcing her support for Inverness, Swinton declared: “Once again we are reminded by the Inverness Film Festival of the hunger in the Highlands for cracking and varied cinema – surely the most avid population of filmgoers on these islands: willing to fight their way to bean bags, deck chairs and now through blizzards to go gaga for film. It’s my great honour to bring my work home to my neighbours to present Orlando here, one of the dearest films I ever worked on, and one of which I am extremely proud.”

Swinton is just the most high profile film buff in a community of cinema lovers, and community is one of the defining themes of this year’s Festival. Co-Director Matt Lloyd explains: “We try not to shoehorn films into any particular category and the theme each year tends to emerge organically from the selections. This year it is Imagined Communities. Concepts of community are particularly important in the Highlands and it was a theme we kept coming back to constantly as the programme came together.”

Lloyd believes the theme of community is most apparent in the documentary choices at Inverness, particularly Crawford and sleep furiously. Crawford tells of the Texas town that became the adopted home of George W. Bush when he decided to run for President. The seven hundred residents have experienced everything from joy to terror as the insular town has become a focus for the media and a battleground for anti-war protesters.

The award-winning sleep furiously offers a lyrical portrait of a small farming community in mid-Wales whose lives are defined by the changing seasons but whose future is at the mercy of a declining population and the encroachments of the modern world.

The best films at Inverness are the ones that leave the viewer with plenty to mull over in the bar afterwards. Lloyd is particularly pleased that the Festival has a growing reputation as a place where film lovers and film makers can come together to discuss issues and share ideas.

It is a Festival with a passion for Scottish film that is apparent throughout a programme that includes the award-winning Summer with Robert Carlyle, a Scottish premiere for the homegrown chiller Senseless, and a vintage double-bill that places the charming 1935 fantasy The Ghost Goes West next to Bill Forsyth’s classic Local Hero.

Inverness has a breadth of programme that should ensure there is something for all appetites. Highlights include Scottish premieres of the bad taste Steve Coogan comedy Hamlet 2, the psychological thriller The Broken, Michael Winterbottom’s poignant ghost story Genova, the Alpine epic North Face, suspenseful family drama Tokyo Sonata from cult director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and the Dardenne Brothers impressive thriller Le Silence De Lorna.

There is also a focus on the short films of Ben Rivers, a fiercely independent artist who works outside the mainstream, shooting on an old Bolex winding camera and developing the results in his kitchen sink. His films are a celebration of the marginalised, focusing on people who live in isolation or survive on their wits.

The Festival will show a number of Rivers’ recent Scottish works, including Origin Of The Species and Ah Liberty!, which were both shot near Tomich.

As well as watching films, Lloyd hopes that some audience members might even be encouraged to start thinking about making them.

“I think we’ve always seen the Festival as a place that might help to boost local skills,” he explains. “There are Channel 4 masterclasses this year with cinematographers and sound recordists, and Eden Court workshops in acting for the camera and screen combat.

“We know there are lots of people making short films across the Highlands and lots of aspiring filmmakers as well. This is a chance for them to learn from the experts. We are also showing two of the films from the Eden Court Film Lab scheme, which allows the Festival to showcase some of the talent from our own communities.”

Inverness is now firmly established as an unmissable event for Highland film fans, and the 2008 programme is one of the strongest. If the filmmakers of the future are looking for inspiration then Inverness gives them an abundance of opportunities. If they are looking for a star performer to take the lead in their masterpiece then Tilda Swinton might even be the one to make that dream a reality.

The 6th Inverness Film Festival runs from 19-23 November 2008 at Eden Court. Tickets and further information are available from the Eden Court box-office on 01463 234 234.

© Allan Hunter, 2008