The story of the father and son who practically invented the modern game of golf in the mid-19th century from the then-isolated outpost of Prestwick on the Ayrshire coast; a comic paean to the “water of life” after a ship full of whisky hits the rocks and crafty locals do their best to hang on to the cargo. Few films would seem more archetypally Scots than Tommy’s Honour, a biopic of pioneering golf champion Young Tom Morris, and Whisky Galore, the remake of the classic Ealing comedy featuring Gregor Fisher (aka Rab C Nesbitt). As the films occupying the high-profile opening and closing gala slots at the Edinburgh international film festival, their cultural capital is entirely appropriate.
The film festival’s fondness for showcasing Scottish cinema is not a new phenomenon, but appears to have become a serious commitment. Last year, the opening and closing slots were again occupied by Scottish films: The Legend of Barney Thomson, directed by and starring celebrated Scots actor Robert Carlyle, and Iona, the second film from nascent auteur Scott Graham and set on the Hebridean island of the title. “There’s a logic to it,” says the festival’s artistic director Mark Adams. “If you go to any festival you want to see what’s happening in the domestic cinema; and so we always said: if we found good films that were appropriate then they would be contenders for the gala spots – and that’s just what happened.”
Edinburgh will also be dribbling other Scots-connected films through its programme: theatre director Graeme Maley is bringing two Icelandic-produced features, Pale Star and A Reykjavik Porno, while Mike Day’s award-winning Faroes whale-hunter documentary The Islands and the Whales is receiving its European premiere. Braveheart actor Angus Macfadyen is turning up with his directorial debut with Macbeth Unhinged, while Dougray Scott is the lead in zombie horror The Rezort (though its director, Steve Barker, is English). Animation team Will Anderson and Ainslie Henderson, graduates of the Edinburgh College of Art, get a min-retrospective of their work to date, which includes the Bafta-winning The Making of Longbird.
Adams is keen to talk up Scotland’s film-making, which you would expect to be in a confident, self-assertive state after the seismic cultural and political changes of the past few years. “It’s a good time in lots of ways,” he says. “There are lots of strong films coming out on a regular basis, there’s a really great talent base, of actors and technicians – that’s what shows through. Like any national film industry, these things go in cycles – you get something that clicks with audiences, does well internationally, and things go from there.”
Adams also points to the ongoing success of the US TV series Outlander, which has been shooting in a Cumbernauld studio since 2013, and the recent return of the cast and crew of Trainspotting – arguably the most recognisably Scottish film of all – to Edinburgh to film the sequel. (That, unfortunately, is one film that Adams won’t get his hands on, as it is already locked into a January 2017 release date, far too early for next year’s festival.) “Things take a long time to percolate through the film industry, but there is definitely a sense of confidence, of films getting made and getting out there. People are busy, crews are busy; these things feed off each other, and give everything a buzz.”
Adams may be right about the buzz, but not everyone is convinced Scotland’s film-making is on the crest of a wave. Screen International’s chief film critic Fionnuala Halligan suggests that, compared to the likes of, say, Ireland, Scotland looks a little “moribund”. “The difference between Ireland and Scotland seems to be a lack of a studio space and a lack of facilities,” Halligan says. “Ireland and Northern Ireland have taken a lot of filming – Star Wars on Skellig, Game of Thrones in Belfast – and they have been very proactive.”
It’s also fair to say that, on the evidence of this year’s festival at least, Scottish cinema is suffering a little from the absence of the kind of dominant creative personalities that have sustained it in the recent past. Lynne Ramsay appears to be moving into American cinema, Peter Mullan has concentrated on acting since 2010’s Neds, and Kevin Macdonald is currently working on his second music documentary (about Whitney Houston). Halligan approvingly notes the achievements of Shell and Iona director Graham (“a great, singular vision”) and former Beta Band member John Maclean, whose debut feature Slow West impressed audiences in 2015. Other recent films – Under the Skin, Macbeth, Sunshine on Leith, Sunset Song – are impressive interactions with Scots culture and landscape, she suggests, but sit somewhat awkwardly as fully Scottish films. “Things are going OK; there’s plenty happening but, to be honest, there’s little sense there’s a new wave of Scottish film-makers bubbling under, about to come down.”
Chris Young, the Skye-based producer who scored an immense hit with that very English comedy The Inbetweeners Movie is also less than convinced that an Indyref dividend has yet arrived. As someone at the coalface of Scottish film production, Young’s central issue is over the matter of domestic film-making. “We won’t have a proper industry here if all we do is entertain the Americans,” he says. “We’ve got to make stuff ourselves. If you think of movies made in Scotland in the last five years, most of the directors or producers have come in and used it as a location. That is a pity.”
Young has spent the past few years concentrating on his Gaelic-language TV drama Bannan (three new episodes of which are to screen at Edinburgh) and has a clutch of feature projects about to go before the cameras – including an adaptation of Neil Gunn’s celebrated Scottish novel The Silver Darlings, a drama about the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing, and a comedy about Donald Trump’s Scottish golf course.
Young is convinced he can see the root problem, and it’s not the lack of studio space (“I’ve never believed in buildings”). For him, “the British film industry is based entirely on the British television industry, and at the moment in Scotland television is not supporting film enough. What needs to happen is a strategic partnership between [funding agency] Creative Scotland and the television companies, STV and the BBC. I am optimistic about the future but it’s taking a very long time.” Young says he has a lot of time for Holyrood culture secretary Fiona Hyslop, and “the threat of separation has forced everyone to be a bit less London-centric, but we haven’t yet seen the results”. “The one thing that’s really happening in Scotland is Outlander – it’s employing loads of people – but it’s American. If Sony think it’s worth putting five years of TV production in Scotland, why doesn’t Britain?
“If ever there was time for Scotland to be succeeding as a product, it should be now. In the last two years, we’ve had our moment. I’m a bit disappointed as I don’t think it’s delivered yet.”
