ReelScotland round-up 🎬 February 2024
GFF, HippFest, Filmhouse, new BBC and Netflix series and more...
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, are trying to enter it or just enjoy films and TV with a Scottish connection, then this is for you.
🎬 The 20th Glasgow Film Festival kicks off tonight with Opening Gala Love Lies Bleeding and continues through to Sunday 10th March. Have a browse of the packed programme that also includes this year’s Frightfest horror festival. The BFI recommends 10 films to see.
🎬 The 17th Glasgow Short Film Festival opens on Wednesday 20th March and runs until Sunday 24th March. The full programme is now live and includes unseen, live-scored short films from Bill Douglas, rediscovered work by Mexican feminist group Cine Mujer (with Invisible Women) and experimental reappropriation of archive footage by Jyoti Mistry.
🇵🇱 A weekend of Polish cinema will take place in Aberdeen as part of the International Film Festival Tofifest. Organised by the Polish Association Aberdeen and running from 1st to 3rd March, it’s the seventh strand of the 2024 Polish-Scottish Mini Festival 2024.
🎞️ The Hippodrome Silent Film Festival - HippFest for short - returns for its 14th edition from Wednesday 20th to Sunday 24th March with a line-up of silent films presented with live musical accompaniment plus talks, workshops and the famous jeely jar screening. There are also various HippFest at Home screenings for those who can’t make it to Bo’ness. Head over to the site to view the programme.
💰 If you’ve not managed to donate to the Crowdfunder to revive Edinburgh Filmhouse (and if you can afford it), consider visiting the site as the target has been raised to £300,000 and now ends on 30th April. Brian Ferguson has reported in The Scotsman that City of Edinburgh Council has ring-fenced cash for the project.
📽️ Oban's Phoenix Cinema will soon be closed on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday due to falling numbers and rising costs; its energy prices have risen to over £8,000 more than they were pre-pandemic, a rise of 138 per cent. West Coast Today reports that nine jobs rely on the cinema and that there will be fewer working hours on the rota when the change comes in.
💰 The Celtic Media Festival, a three day celebration of TV, radio, film and digital media from the Celtic nations and regions, is accepting submissions for the International Pitching Forum which offers a £6,000 development prize and an opportunity to pitch to international broadcasters in one space. Full details are on the website.
🏆 Congratulations to Scottish filmmaker Bonnie MacRae who has won the best director award at the British Film Institute’s Future Film Festival. All Up There follows 20-something Eilidh as she begins to seek answers for the debilitating pain she is experiencing. The film was made with a fully female/non-binary crew and filmed entirely in Glasgow on a £2000 budget with the support of GMAC Film and Creative Scotland. The full film can be watched on YouTube.
🏆 The winners of this year’s Gaelic short film competition, FilmG, were announced on Friday. Taking top spot in the under 18 competition was Parker Dawes who won the Best Film for Iomlaineachd (Perfection), the second year in a row Dawes has picked up the award. Highlights of the awards can be watched on BBC iPlayer.
📺 New research conducted by broadcasting union BECTU that paints a bleak picture of what life is really like for ordinary workers within the British TV and film industry. Sky notes that many professionals report a dire shortage of paid work, with many saying they're stressed, some even suicidal, taking on mounting debts to keep afloat.
⏰ Long working days in film and TV have come under the spotlight in an in-depth feasibility study which assessed the financial implications of a shorter working day – 8 hours versus the standard 10 – for scripted drama production. Timewise and BECTU Vision have recommended that industry partners support a trial production where the shorter day would run across all departments.
🎂 Happy fifth birthday to the BBC Scotland channel, which reaches more people than any other digital channel in Scotland. Home to series such as Guilt, Mayflies and Scot Squad, it’s usually worth dropping in to iPlayer see what’s on there - requests for content from Scotland have grown by 250% since the channel’s launch. It’s also worth noting that flagship news programme The Nine is being scrapped due to low viewing figures.
📺 The BBC has commissioned Lions, a six-part drama about two men across the decades, written and created by writer and performer Richard Gadd and set and filmed in and around Glasgow.
😆 BBC Comedy and BBC Scotland have commissioned Only Child, a new sitcom from Bryce Hart. It stars Greg McHugh as only child and budding author Richard, who travels back to his family home in North East Scotland to look after his aging and wilful dad Ken, played by Gregor Fisher, as he slips into ever more eccentric and erratic behaviour.
🧑⚖️ The BBC has also announced that award-winning documentary series Murder Trial will return later in 2024 and focus on two new cases, the deaths of Caroline Glachan and Ean Coutts. In addition, a 10-part Inside The Murder Trial podcast will be presented by journalist Jane McSorley and feature powerful archive content and key contributors.
📕 Edinburgh is expecting an uptick in tourists following the launch of TV series One Day on Netflix. The latest adaptation of David Nicholls novel was filmed around the city and This Morning took a wander around the locations earlier in the week.
🎥 Netflix is also behind a new crime drama Department Q, currently being filmed in Edinburgh and starring Matthew Goode, Kelly Macdonald and Mark Bonnar. A former top-rated Edinburgh detective is assigned to a new cold case whilst wracked with guilt following an attack that left his partner paralysed and another policeman dead.
🎥 Actor Rufus Sewell has been spotted in Inveraray filming for the new series of Netflix's The Diplomat - from this report it seems a tractor driver was the real star of the scene.
📺 The teaser trailer for the upcoming series The Tattooist of Auschwitz, from Scottish production company Synchronicity Film, has been released. Based on the bestselling novel by Heather Morris, it's inspired by the real-life story of Lali and Gita Sokolov, who met while prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust of World War II. Harvey Keitel and Melanie Lynskey are among the cast.
🎞️ Andrew Cumming’s Scottish Highlands-set (and filmed) horror film Out of Darkness is now in cinemas. Set in the Stone Age, a disparate gang of early humans band together in search of a new land. But when they suspect a malevolent, mystical being is hunting them down, the clan are forced to confront a danger they never envisioned…
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