An Inverness multi-storey car park will be transformed into a cinema with a difference during the 22nd- 4th September. After a call from staff at the Old Town Rose Street car park to the IOTA (Inverness Old Town Art) team offering up their building for contemporary arts events.

The event, titled Sublime, is funded by Creative Scotland and will bring a whole range of moving image works, from Highland and International artists, to the building from contemporary artist films, classic cinema, new documentaries, shorts along with live music. On each of the three evenings there will be open air screenings of artists’ films on the car park’s roof top.

Susan Christie, Director of IOTA, said: ‘The Sublime programme is the first in a series of events which aim to profile artists from the Highlands who have forged successful careers alongside high quality international artists like Francis Alÿs and Nicholas Provost. We hope that this film project will create a really different experience for those of us who use the building regularly as a car park – and bring some people to the building who might never have been before.’

Featured Highland artist Lisa O’Brien, who lives in Sheildaig near Strathcarron, said: ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing Kevin MacDonald’s new film as I’ve heard it’s really good, though I am extremely overwhelmed to even have my name next to his in the programme.’

Originally from Spean Bridge, Sublime‘s guest curator, Lorraine Wilson aims is to bring different film audiences together, merging gallery and cinema audiences, she said: ‘I’m interested in what happens when you encourage audiences to cross over and merge – visual art with music, commercial film with artistic works, art-going audiences with non attendees. Having a public space like the car park as a location for different types of films lets us bring all these different audiences together for one really unusual experience.’

Films from artists with Highland connections include:

Trail of Tears – the world premiere of Moray based artist Graeme Roger (who also teaches at Eden Court) and collaborator Kevin Reid‘s (Ganghut) new work, filmed in and around the Highlands; October by Katy Dove, originally from the Black Isle she has just completed a prestigious six month Creative Scotland artist residency in New York; There is a Place by Glenferness (near Nairn) based Simon Fildes and Katrina McPherson won the Jury Prize Best Short at the 2011 San Francisco Dance Film Festival; and Balnakiel by Shona Illingworth, working all over the world, but brought up near Durness, whose film was produced by Film and Video Umbrella, London.

Works by international artists include:

When Faith Moves Mountains by Mexico based globally acclaimed Francis Alÿs; Plot Point by Dutch filmmaker Nicholas Provost; Low Growl by Icelandic artist Baldvin Ringsted; and Smuggling Lemons by Palestinian artist Jumana Emil Abboud.

Other highlights include:

Life in a Day – the first Inverness screening of the new film from Last King of Scotland and Touching the Void director Kevin MacDonald, who in collaboration with producer Ridley Scott edited over 80,000 hours of footage people from all over the world sent in taken by them on one day last year, July 24th 2010, including Inverness; and a unique screening of The Philadelphia Story – the classic wedding comedy featuring James Stewart, Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, screened in a ground floor room of the car park which used to be a Registry Office!

There will also be live musical performances from two of the best Gaelic singers working today, Inverness based Brian O’ hEadhra and Fiona McKenzie, tying in with a screening of Eadar Chluich/ Interludes – a series of short wordless films from some of Scotland’s best emerging directors, each inspired by a Gaelic song; and local rock musician Toby Michaels, after a screening of Icelandic artist Baldvin Ringsted’s homage to heavy metal Low Growl.

Old Town Rose Street Car Park, Inverness, IV1 1NQ

Thursday 22^nd – Saturday 24^th September 2011

Sublime is funded by Creative Scotland, all events are free on a first come first served basis.

Source: IOTA