Sundance festival invite for Scots short films

A SCOTTISH short film about a 73 year-old weightlifting champion has been selected for screening at one of the world’s best-known film festivals, along with another Scottish entry.

Ma Bar, about Scot, Bill McFadyen, is to be shown at the Sundance Film Festival – actor and director, Robert Redford’s renowned festival for independent film, which is taking place next month in Utah, USA.

At the Scottish BAFTAs last month, it took the ‘Best short film’ prize.

Produced and directed by Finlay Pretsell and Adrian McDowall, the 12-minute film has already enjoyed screenings at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Pretsell is a production and distribution manager at the Scottish Documentary Institute, while McDowell is a tutor at the Edinburgh College of Art.

The other film to make it to Sundance is Steel Homes, another short, and which recently had its world premiere at the International Amsterdam Documentary Festival.

It is described as being “set in the starkly beautiful aesthetic of our modern industrial world”.

Says Pretsell: “We’re totally thrilled to be going to Sundance; hopefully, it will be a place where we can raise money for our next film. It’s in our all-time top three festivals in the world that we wanted to attend – with a film, of course.

“Bill will be delighted too; he never thought that when we came round to his house to ask him to make this wee film, that it would be watched by people across the world.”