Cromarty & Black Isle, 5-7 December 2008

Rob Roy

PERCHED on the furthest tip of the Black Isle, Cromarty is a place apart. Its 18th century streets offer an almost Brigadoon-ish charm but though small (just over 700), this community has a rich, thriving arts scene. With director Don Coutts, a local resident, as a major driving force, the Cromarty Film Festival was held for the first time last year when an assortment of well-kent folk were asked to introduce their favourite films (and in the case of directors, one of their own films as well) and talk about them afterwards.

This year the guest list included Hi-Arts own Robert Livingston, Kirsty Wark and Alan Clements, Gus Wylie, Janice Forsyth, Karen Matheson and Donald Shaw from Capercaillie, and directors Michael Caton-Jones (Scandal, Rob Roy) and David Mackenzie (Hallam Foe, Young Adam).

Eden Court had kindly sent their cinema team over to ensure that all technical aspects were dealt with professionally, and it showed. Films were shown in all shapes and sizes of venues but wherever the screening, there was the feeling of settling down in a living room, especially at the Old Brewery where viewing was from the comfort of a leather sofa with a large mug of tea in hand. (You don’t get this at Cannes, I can tell you. …). I left Cromarty on Monday morning with a rekindled enthusiasm for cinema.

The festival programme was as full of good things as a Christmas stocking, and it was hard to choose between them. The dilemma began on Friday evening. Hallam Foe at Resolis or Spinal Tap at the Old Brewery? I ended up in Resolis where the Christmas tree lights were dimmed and the magic of cinema took over. Before and after the screening, promoter David Gilbert asked intelligent questions and discovered amongst other things that director David Mackenzie had worked in the iconic Edinburgh hotel in which much of the action of this fine little film takes place.

Without having been to Resolis, would I have been aware that Mackenzie’s choice on Saturday, Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail, shared with Hallam Foe a slice-of-life, warts and all lack of sentimentality and interest in non-conformity? Probably not. In a typical Cromarty moment, I found myself conscripted to chauffeur the man himself to Resolis (and must apologise, again, to both my passengers for inadvertently taking the long way round, but we did arrive intact and in time for Rob Roy).

Being part of a small audience which included Kirsty Wark and Janice Forsyth made that screening a fairly unforgettable experience. Michael Caton-Jones – in conversation with David Gilbert – revealed that his first job was delivering cinema posters in Broxburn, where one of his early cinematic heroes was John Ford.

Suddenly, an epic Western with the Highlanders as Indians to the Duke of Montrose’s cavalry made total sense. Caton-Jones reminisced about auditioning dancers in Oban and deciding that the band they were dancing to, Capercaillie, would have to become an integral part of the soundtrack.

Which was a neat link to Sunday night’s programme with Donald Shaw and Karen Matheson being interviewed by Don Coutts. Shaw said he loved cinema because it was so inspiring – “There are things you’ve put in a box because they’re just unrealistic, then you see a film and think ‘no, I can do that'”. (We should have asked which film inspired him to take on Celtic Connections).

Their choice was one of the small jewels of French cinema, Tous les Matins du Monde, the story of the baroque composer Sainte Colombe and his disciple Marin Marais, who spends a lifetime discovering that technique is nothing without soul. The music was wonderful. A lone tortoiseshell butterfly, woken from hibernation by the unaccustomed warmth in the Stables, fluttered to and fro in front of the screen. Somehow it felt absolutely right.

© Jennie Macfie, 2008

Links

• Cromarty Film Festival