ReelScotland round-up 🎬 April 2024

New Stirling Studios, farewell Short Circuit, Billy in cinemas

Welcome to the ReelScotland round-up, a look at what’s happening in the world of Scottish film and TV. If you work in the Scottish screen sector or just enjoy films and TV with a Scottish connection, then this is for you.

🎬 Scotland will soon have a brand new film studio in the shape of Stirling Studios, located on former Ministry of Defence land at Forthside. The press release explains that Stirling’s geographical location provides easy access for talent from Glasgow and Edinburgh and that there's currently 100,000 sq ft of studio space and 110,000 sq ft for production, logistics and office space at the site. An independent economic impact assessment has estimated the project will create over 4,000 jobs in 25 years in a range of occupations, with the positive impacts filtering down the wider supply chains.

📽️ Prestwick's Broadway Cinema was officially handed over to the community yesterday, 89 years since it first opened its doors, reports The Ayr Advertiser. The key to the building is now in the hands of Friends of the Broadway, the community group set up to restore the cinema that was given £328,060 from the Scottish Land Fund to buy the Main Street building at a much reduced price from former owners, restaurant chain Buzzworks.

📺 Do you want to become a TV researcher, Edit Assistant or Production Assistant? TRC's rad Scotland is a paid 8-month TV traineeship aimed at those who are underrepresented in the TV industry: those who are either deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent, from Black, Asian or minority ethnic communities or from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Find out more.

🎬 Bad news for budding filmmakers, as film talent initiative Short Circuit came to an abrupt end this month. Set up in 2020, delivered by Film City Futures in partnership with Glasgow Film, and supported by Screen Scotland and BFI NETWORK, Short Circuit offers funding to support short films into production, and the development of first feature films. A Facebook post published on 3rd April explained that Film City Futures has “opted to conclude its delivery of the initiative” on 30th June. No replacement has been announced, though the post mentions that Screen Scotland will be developing a continuation strategy "for live individual projects".

🎬 Glasgow-based production company Freedom Scripted have announced that they’re adapting Engleby, the 2007 novel by Sebastian Faulks, with Noah Jupe attached to play the lead. Set between London and Cambridge, the six-part drama is a British murder mystery and psychological character study. The series follows enigmatic outsider Mike Engleby as he graduates from 1970s campus life to 1980s Fleet Street and beyond – haunted all the while by an unsolved mystery involving a friend and fellow student during their university days.

🏆 Glasgow’s Media Co-op has won the People’s Choice bronze award in the UK Charity Film Awards for a short animated film about the Scottish Co-operative Women’s Guild. The stop-motion animation tells the story of Molly Mercer and other women’s rights campaigners in the guild 100 years ago, and the inspiration they offer to today’s feminist campaigners.

💰 The Edinburgh Filmhouse Crowdfunder will remain open until the end of June, as announced last week by the team behind the successful bid to reopen the venue. With money still being donated every day, and the costs of the refurbishment due to be high, it seems that every penny counts in the run up to the cinema’s return at the end of 2024. (And if you’re in Edinburgh, remember to sign up to The Edinburgh Minute newsletter for daily culture news)

🎞️ Restless Natives star Vincent Friel has died at the age of 64, his agent Claire Murray describing him to the BBC as "a hugely respected actor within the Scottish theatre, TV and film community." Friel also appeared in Trainspotting, The Angel's Share and TV shows including Still Game and Rab C Nesbitt.

🎭 Prolific stage and screen actor Peter Kelly has died at the age of 82. Although recognisable from many film and TV appearances, including Rebus, The Bill and multiple episodes of Taggart, he’ll be best remembered for his stage work - there’s a lengthy obituary in The Herald.

🎉 The Skinny takes a look back at 50 years of the Glasgow Film Theatre, talking to many of those involved in its success over the years.

⚔️ The National recently profiled Combat International, a Stirlingshire-based group of actors and battle re-enactment specialists who have cultivated a 30-year-long career preparing authentic fight scenes for films and TV series including Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World and HBO’s House of the Dragon. Founder Charlie Allen explained “You don’t get hired as much as we get hired if you’re dodgy or dangerous. We don’t pull our punches, but we are safe, we’re not reckless.”

🎮 It seems that the hit all-American Amazon series Fallout has its roots in Scotland. As reported in The Scottish Daily Express, the original Fallout video games were developed by Black Isle Studios, part of Interplay Entertainment, which was founded by expat Scot Fergus Urquhart and named after his home region on the shores of Moray Firth, to the north of Inverness.

🧂 One story to be taken with a pinch of salt this month is the news that the old Odeon cinema on South Clerk Street in Edinburgh, which closed down in 2003, is once again being prepared for reopening. Edinburgh Live ran a piece mentioned that workmen have been spotted outside. This is a story that pops up every few years - including in 2013 when Susan Boyle’s brother, Gerry, was going to reopen the venue - but perhaps this time it really will happen.

🎞️ The Outrun, the feature adaptation of Amy Liptrot's best-selling memoir, will be released in cinemas across the UK & Ireland on 27th September. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedu and Stephen Dillane, the film was shot on location in the Orkney Islands and debuted at Sundance and the Berlin International Film Festival.

🍺 Scottish actor Greg Hemphill has been spotted in the opening seconds of the trailer for the forthcoming Ryan Reynold’s film Deadpool & Wolverine telling Hugh Jackman to ‘Get the f*** out of my bar’.

📀 And a reminder that Murray Grigor’s 1976 documentary Big Banana Feet, which captures Billy Connolly on and off stage during his 1975 tour of Ireland, is in cinemas on 10th May. The BFI’s DVD/Blu-ray release of the film is on 20th May.

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