Shallow Grave star Kerry Fox to appear at island festival celebrating female filmmaking talent
The Sea Change festival is the only one in Scotland celebrating female filmmaking talent.
Shallow Grave star Kerry Fox will appear at an island film festival celebrating female filmmaking talent.
The actress, who played Juliet Miller in the 1994 hit film set in Edinburgh alongside Ewan McGregor, is to introduce some of her favourite collaborations with female directors at Sea Change Festival on Tiree in September.
The Hebridean island is located over 80 miles away from the nearest permanent cinema.
The festival’s opening night will host a screening of The Rugged Isle: A Shetland Lyric, a poignant 1934 “story documentary” about crofting life by the pioneering Scottish filmmaker Jenny Gilbertson.
Meanwhile, Ms Fox will introduce a closing night screening of Fanny and Elvis, in conversation with Allison Gardner, chief executive of Glasgow Film. Writer-director Kay Mellor's first film is an odd-couple romantic comedy, starring Fox as a middle-class romantic novelist and Ray Winstone as a tough car salesman who meet when her clapped-out VW Beetle.
She will also introduce a screening of Jane Campion’s classic 1990 biopic An Angel At My Table and lead a special industry workshop on working with actors.
Meanwhile, the writer of The Outrun, Amy Liptrot, will speak at a screening of the film adaptation of her hit book, which stars Saoirse Ronan as a woman who returns home to the Orkney Islands.
Sea Change’s artistic director Jen Skinner, who lives full-time on Tiree where she runs Screen Argyll, said: “We are so excited to share brilliant films and welcome wonderful people into our communities, for this year’s Sea Change. Tiree is the most Westerly Island in the Inner Hebrides and the ideal place to ask what connects us.”
The festival - which takes place at venues across the island including An Talla, community hall, the 19th century Hynish Centre originally built to house the workers building Skerryvore Lighthouse and Screen Argyll’s screening room in Crossapol - also offers audiences sea swims, beach pilates and ceilidh dancing classes alongside the big screen entertainment.
There will also be a focus on women in Scottish animation, with leading Scots animators Vicki Haworth and Orkney-borne Selina Wagner visiting the festival to showcase their award-winning animated shorts and lead workshops for both adults and children.
Ms Skinner said: “Everyone is welcome to join us for a weekend of films, workshops, family activities and special guests. Local venues open their doors to filmmakers, film students and film lovers of all ages as we come together to watch, talk, walk, swim, make and share.”
In addition to the festival on Tiree, screenings will be held in other Argyll island communities, including the Isles of Seill, Mull and Coll.
She added: “We are all about bringing communities together through film. I can’t wait to share cinema, connections and Tiree with audiences this year.”
Ahead of the public festival opening on 19 September, a host of leading female and non-binary film industry professionals will arrive on Tiree for a series of conversations around an ever-shifting industry.
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