SCOTS and Scottish movies feature relatively prominently in the line-up for one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals – the Toronto International Film Festival, which is celebrating its 31st year (a mere child compared to its recently-ended Edinburgh counterpart, which has just celebrated its 60th birthday).
The festival – which runs from the 7th until the 16th of next month – includes 27 UK productions and co-productions, with Red Road, set in Glasgow, and The Last King of Scotland, by Scottish director, Kevin Macdonald, among them.
Red Road, part-funded by Scottish Screen and produced by Carrie Comerford for Glasgow-based Sigma Films, was a winner at Cannes earler this year, while Macdonald is probably best known for his mountaineering drama/doc, Touching the Void.
Winner only the other day of the New Directors Award at Edinburgh, Paul Andrew Williams’ London to Brighton, also gets a screening, as does another debut feature, by Tom Vaughan – who was born in Glasgow and brought up in Helensburgh: Starter For Ten, co-produced by Tom Hanks and starring Scots actors, James McAvoy and Lindsay Duncan.
You know the Yellow Pages advert featuring a girl who thinks there’s been a burglary in the neighbouring flat, when, in actual fact, it is just a mess? That was his.
