FILM SCOTTISH
BACARDI BLACK
I Butter: Scottish actor Alan Cumming gets behind the camera for Butter. a new short co-funded by the Scottish Film Production Fund. Scottish Television Enterprises and Observer Films. Cumming also wrote the script, which follows a day in the life of Jane. a woman who has everything. but decides she has to kick one of her bad habits — men or food. The film stars Hilary Lyon, Richard E. Grant. Helena Bonham Carter and Jane Horrocks.
The Scottish Film Production Fund has also pledged support to four other projects: Brian Ross's Wheels (see below); The Hands Of The Healer, a feature written by Tony Grisoni and directed by Brian Ward, which tells the story of the meeting between a fraudulent child psychic and escapoligist Harry Houdini; The Life 0] Stuff. a feature, set in Glasgow, to be adapted by Simon Donald from his critically acclaimed play. and Night Of The Sirens, with Gill Parry producing Robert Murphy‘s script.
I Flicker: Glasgow’s most accessible
shown - time permitting — on VHS. Low Band or Super 8. Arrangements can be made to show work on other formats by contacting Martha at Street Level (041 552 215i) well in advance. I Tartan Shorts Applications for ten- minute narrative drama films are now being invited from producer/writer/ director teams for the third year of BBC Scotland/Scottish Film Production Fund‘s Tartan, Shorts. This year. the awards have been increased from £30,000 to £43,000 for the three short films chosen to go into production. Application forms and details are available from the SFPF offices at 74 Victoria Crescent Road,
. Glasgow G12 9JN, with the closing date for receipt of applications set at 7 October.
I Glasgow Fair Archive: Archive
mm- BERGMAH SUMMERS
For those used to relentlessly grey Scottish summers, perhaps it comes as no surprise that the frequently dour Ingmar Bergman put that word in his film titles three times. While Smiles Of A Summer Night is widely regarded as one of his best works, the earlier Summer With Monika and Summer Interlude - about to be released on sell-through video - are less well known.
Summer Interlude (PG, Tartan £15.99) was Bergman’s first really mature work, based on a reminiscence of his teenage years. It follows a ballerina as she thinks back to a past summer romance, revisiting the locations. The
themselves from the confines of a
glum working-class background. But Bergman takes his themes further, as she defies first parents, then society, by getting pregnant, then leaving her
footage of Glasgwegians soaking tip
the holiday atmosphere will form a
major part of a special 70-minute
‘ Glasgow Fair screening at the GFT on - Sun 17 at 6pm. The programme also
; includes animation from Fernan Day
5 Centre in the city‘s East End.
I Censorship Debate: Questions of
how much sex and violence we are
; willing to tolerate on our screens will be raised as the Sight and Sound debate
on Censorship and the Cinema makes
3 its way to the Edinburgh Filmhouse on
Wed 27. Panellists will include Richard Falcon. senior examiner at the British Board of Film Classification.
' I Bosnia NOW: A sponsored screening ; of Mrs Doubt/ire for Edinburgh-based charity Bosnia Now will take place at
forum for screening and discussing new ;
film work, Flicker, has recently moved to Project Ability at 18 Albion Street. and will now take place on the last
Thursday ofthe month. Participants are =
invited to bring along finished or unfinished material, which will be
the Cameo Cinema at noon on Sat 16. All proceeds will go towards funding
doctors. nurses and aid workers in
Bosnia. Before the film. Bosnia Now‘s
Edinburgh director Nikkie du Pr'ec/
will give a brief talk outlining the current situation in Bosnia and the aims of the charity.
:— Ready to roll
Take a camera, the Iarget CB rig in the Highlands, a set of wheels and some long-awaited funding and you are ready to shoot a small town In North- east Scotland. We are not talking genocide, but the making of a Taln- based short film, focusing on one crazy night In the summer of 1982.
Wheels has the funding of the Scottish Film Production Fund and Gramplan Television behind it, but its makers need to give If one more push before shooting can begin in September. Barony Film and Television Productions are on the lookout for 80s memorobilla, from Hazareth T-shlrts to a Golf on. These are the ingredients of a comedy film which promises to capture the essence of small town existence.
Writer and director Brlan floss has lived and breathed the script of Wheels. Brought up In the North-east town of Taln, he witnessed the 1980s rise of CB culture, content to loiter on Its periphery - goths don’t have 08s. The 28-year-old who left Taln a decade ago, hopes Wheels will bury the myth
that Scottish life is a gritty episode of Taggart or a dewy-eyed tale of tartan romance.
‘I would like to hope this will open people’s eyes to a different side of Scotland,’ he says. ‘lt’s an area that has been unrepresented. It’s always seen in romantic terms in movies like Local Hero.’
Wheels is the tale of Janice, a CB fanatic with the largest, most powerful CB rig in the Highlands. All she wants Is to live up to her handle - the Mobile Lady - but her biker boyfriend lives by the maxim two wheels good, four wheels bad.
Her personal saga is set against a backdrop of Highland small-town life. ‘Swap vinyl-roofed Ford Escorts for open-topped Chevrolets, and the housing estates of a small Highland town for the sidewalks of middle America and you get some idea of the atmosphere of Wheels,’ says Boss.
He and film producer Barbara McKlssack are determined to make this an authentic snapshot of 80s life, however horrendous. Having secured funding for Wheels, they must now find their props, from body warmers and heavy metal LPs to the largest GB in the Highlands. If you can help, please telephone 031 558 3275. (Kathleen Morgan)
sponsored by BACARDI BLACK
story is tinged with typical Bergman melancholy but is less laden with symbolic meaning than much of his oeuvre. The beautiful gardens and untamed wilderness of Stockholm’s outer archipelago form a sensuous backdrop to this tale of love growing and dying like the seasons.
Summer With Monika (PG, Tartan £15.99) is a much more daring film.
boyfriend with the baby to pursue a more independent lifestyle. Harriet Andersson is radiant as the sparky young girl whose sense of life blows some warmth into what would otherwise be a simple, slight, but beautifully photographed tale of young love. As the sun sparkles on the water, and light and shade plays across the clouds, she proves that human nature Again, two young people find love in a i can be as changeable as the weather.
waterside setting, using this to free (Alan MONiSOfl)
I Honour Thy Father And Mother ( 15) The Menender. killings. in which two rich kids shot their parents in their Beverly Hills home. had more plot twists in real life than Hollywood could have dreamed up: the
perfect murder until one
., boy cracks and tells his 9‘ psychiatrist. then a further turnaround when the trial
uncovers allegations of long-term sexual abuse. This US TV version doesn't. however. make the most of the inherent drama. but suggests that the brothers did more than
break a commandment —
to rebel against the financial comfort of the American Dream is a real social taboo. Tabloid fascination. which manages to find some credibility. (Odyssey)
I Martin Scorsese turns his eye to period
splendour and repressive social codes in The Age Of Innocence (U. Columbia Tristar), with a career-best performance by Michelle Pfeiffer; unlikely twists and turns keep viewers on the edge of the couch in Malice ( 15. PolyGram); Wesley Snipes refuses to stay seated and fasten his scatbelt in high-flying action thriller Passenger 57 t l5. Warner). and Woody Allen rediscovers his funny bone in the charmingly middle-class parlour game milieu of Manhattan Murder Mystery (15. Columbia Tristar).
I Sadisterotlca ( 18) Okay. so less Franco might be one of the worst directors of all time. but this colourful slice of late 60s kitsch, along with its sequel Kiss Me Monster. is actually a lot of fun. Like slightly perverted episodes of a TV detective thriller. the former gleefully rips off everything from Murders In The Rue Morgue to House Of llitr. while the latter shows the same overblown exaggeration in its ‘dodgy sci-ft experiments on remote island' plot. ( l8, Redemption £12.99 each) I The Big Clubs German filmmaker Joachim Kreck's 70s documentary on Celtic and Rangers is less about football than the state ofGlasgow. as it was beginning its resurrection programme away from gang infamy towards the European
cultural crown. Also included are two of Kreck's other. shorter. works. which also look at the game at a tangent, The Linesmun and .S‘peciol Police Assignment. (Academy £12.99)
I Chronicle Of A Summer Jean Rouch's style of verite documentary was interested in using the camera and interviewer as a catalyst. provoking a reaction rather than merely capturing life as it happens. Here. working with sociologist Edgar Morin. he captures the feelings of a cross-section of Parisians during the summer of 1960. (Academy 115.99)
I Monty Python As the celebrations for the team's silver jubilee continue. Volumes 3 and 4 of the first television series come out on video. Enjoy again the inexhaustible Parrot Sketch. Lumberjack Song. Lion
i- Tamer. Upper Class Twit
Of The Year and Restaurant Sketch. (PG/15. BMG Video £12.99 each)
I Kon lchikawa's chronicle of the 1964 Olympic Games. Tokyo Olympiad (Tartan £15.99), marries sport with superb widescreen images, but without the fascist overtones of Leni Riefenstahl; the Early Chaplin series continues with work from 1915 on Essaney Vols 2 and 3 (U. PolyGram); blind knight ternplars back from the grave form an effectively scarey sharnbling group terrorising a modern Spanish village in Amando De Osorio‘s Return Of The Evil Dead (18. Redemption £12.99), and skilful use ofarchive footage and documentary- style drama makes for a
4 chillingly convincing
portrait of Britain under Nazi rule in It Happened
Here (PG. Connoisseur £15.99).
22 The List 15—28 July 1994