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HEARTLAND FILM SOCIETY FILM FESTIVALS
STOP PRESS - STOP PRESS - STOP PRESS
We will be holding The Aberfeldy Film Festival this year on Friday 12th and Saturday 13th November 2010. The festival will be held in Castle Menzies in Weem and will include the
Palme Dewar short film competition (more details to come soon).
November 2009 - October 2008 - November 2007 - Other events
CINEMA IN THE CASTLE - NOVEMBER 6-7 2009
The third Heartland Film Society film festival celebrated films that would be fantastic to watch in a castle. Everyone enjoyed a brilliant selection of films in the amazing setting of Castle Menzies in Weem, near Aberfeldy - from romance to comedy, horror to adventure - it was an excellent couple of days.
The film festival also incorporated the Palme Dewar award - Scotland’s brand new open film competition. In previous years, the Society has shown a selection of short films from the Scottish Screen annual selection and the audience has voted for their favourite film. In 2009 we launched an open competition for Scotland’s film makers and for short films made in Scotland. The shortlisted films were shown on Saturday 7th November at 5pm at Dewars World of Whisky. This year’s winner was Chris Dunne (ZMO productions) for his short film “Dark Places in the Sunshine”. For more information, visit the Palme Dewar short film competition website.
THE PROGRAMME
Friday 6th November
7.30pm Dewar Room, Castle Menzies, Weem
Free glass of wine & bar open
Launch of the festival
7.45-9.15pm
Talk and film presentation on David Douglas, given by Syd House (Conservator, Forestry Commission Scotland)
Saturday 7th November - Castle Menzies (Dewar Room)
Coffee available from 10.00am
10.30am-12.00pm Conquest of the South Pole
Director - Gillies MacKinnon 1988, UK, English, 92 minutes
1980s Leith and five unemployed young men, inspired by a copy of Roald Amundsen's diary and a charismatic leader, recreate his historic journey to the South Pole. Their challenges include finding huskies and overcoming glaciers in the docks and streets of Leith. This is MacKinnon’s first feature film and he manages to inject their potentially futile travels through the imagination with both vigour and hope.
10.30am-12.00pm Stone of Destiny
Director - Charles Martin Smith 2008, UK, English, 96 minutes
The Stone of Destiny retells the fascinating and true story of four young Glaswegian students who, in 1951, outwitted the British authorities in their successful attempt to take back the Stone of Scone - a beloved symbol of Scottish pride, back to its country of origin.
2.00pm-3.30pm Orlando
Director - Sally Potter 1992, UK, English, Certificate PG, 93 minutes
Orlando is a sumptuous film based on Virginia Woolf’s novel, said to be a love letter to Vita Sackville West. Sally Potter’s direction follows the dashing Orlando, (an elegant Tilda Swinton) from life at the court of Queen Elizabeth, played by a deliciously decrepit Quentin Crisp, to Woolf’s 1920s. And through his ageless life Orlando both effortlessly changes gender and glides through the most aristocratic and intellectual society of his or her day amongst an array of dazzling locations.
Dewars World of Whisky
5.00pm-6.00pm Palme Dewar 2009 short film competition
The film festival also incorporated the Palme Dewar award - Scotland’s brand new open film competition. In previous years, the Society has shown a selection of short films from the Scottish Screen annual selection and the audience has voted for their favourite film. In 2009 we are launched an open competition for Scotland’s film makers and for short films made in Scotland. The shortlisted films were shown on Saturday 7th November at 5pm at Dewars World of Whisky and the audience voted for the winner of this year’s award. The shortlisted selection was excellent. The winner was Chris Dunne (ZMO productions) for his film “Dark Places in the Sunshine”.
Attic, Castle Menzies, Weem
7.30pm-8.45pm Bride of Frankenstein
Director - James Whales, 1935, US, English, 75 minutes, Certificate PG
One of the greatest horror films of all time, macabre and satirical, it was directed by master of horror James Whale and reunited Colin Clive as Dr. Frankenstein with Boris Karloff as the Monster and Elsa Lanchester as the Bride. Whale anticipated subsequent horror parodies with this insurmountable swan song to the monster movie genre.
Pink Room, Castle Menzies, Weem (to be confirmed)
7.30pm-8.45pm Let the right one in
Director - Tomas Alfredson, 2008, Sweden, 115 minutes, Certificate 15
This Swedish vampire movie is darkly atmospheric yet unexpectedly tender. A highly acclaimed film.
Oskar, a bullied 12-year old, dreams of revenge. He falls in love with Eli, a peculiar girl. She can't stand the sun or food and to come into a room she needs to be invited. Eli gives Oskar the strength to hit back but when he realizes that Eli needs to drink other people's blood to live he's faced with a choice. How much can love forgive? Let The Right One In is a story both violent and highly romantic, set in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982
Dewar Room, Castle Menzies, Weem
9.00pm-12.00am Ceilidh with the Loch Tay Steamers
Bar and buffet at 10.15pm
FILM FESTIVAL OCTOBER 24-26 2008
Our film weekend in 2008 focussed entirely on films actually
“Made in Scotland”.
Friday 24 October
The Festival got off to a great start with director Richard Jobson (16 Years of Alcohol and A Woman in Winter) giving a keynote lecture on using landscape as a character in film. He showed lots of clips and we were privileged to see footage from his latest film New Town Killers before it previewed the following week at the London Film Festival. We started early so that he could get away for the Scottish Style Awards in Glasgow (he won so we had the most stylish Scottish male in our midst!). Julie Craik of Tayscreen then opened the Festival and introduced our theme - “Made in Scotland”.
Saturday 25 October
Saturday morning featured Jobson’s film A Woman in Winter. He showed he could make as well as talk a good film as Edinburgh looked suitably Gothic in this tale of star crossed lovers in parallel existences. Next up was a complete change of tack with Jos Stelling’s De Wisselwachter (The Pointsman). This is a real curiosity. Shot at Corrour Station, it involves a beautiful woman who gets off at the wrong stop and is stuck in the wilderness. It’s a fantasy almost without dialogue and is acted silent movie style. It draws you in like an Eastern European fairy tale.
Keen Festival goers had just time to grab something to eat then it was off to the distillery where Dewar’s World of Whisky were showing the selection of Tartan Shorts which were competing for the Palme Dewar award.
The winner of the second Palme Dewar prize, as voted for by the audience, was Breadmakers, an 11-minute documentary directed by Yasmin Fedda. The picture shows the award being presented by Peter Guthrie of Dewar's to Tony Pitchforth of HFS who accepted on behalf of Fedda and the Garvald breadmakers.
Another Time Another Place was our centrepiece film. So that Festivalgoers who had spent the afternoon watching the Palme Dewar competition could get something to eat, we laid on pizzas from the Tully Café Bar in Grandtully and set up a drinks bar in a side room. The pizzas were a great success and the live accordion playing of Yvonne McLeod and guitarist John helped set the atmosphere.
Director Mike Radford’s recreation of events on the Black Isle in 1944 when Italian prisoners of war are billeted on the local farming community to work on the land is a minor masterpiece with stunning performances from Phyllis Logan and Giovanni Mauriello.
Sunday 26 October
Sunday morning saw Mike Marshall deliver a visually sophisticated overview culled from his Food Programme and Scotland’s Larder series of where Scotland stands in the food stakes today. Televised food shows are candyfloss for the eyeballs; what we need is food politics back on the television agenda.
Our final film, the Bollywood epic Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was an all singing all dancing end to the Festival. Bollywood films are long and the Locus Centre seats hard, so we broke in the middle for Indian Snacks deliciously provided by Chillies Restaurant.
This was a fantastic weekend and thanks are due to Dewar's, who once again allowed us to use their auditorium to screen the Shorts, and to Kevin and Jayne at The Watermill for hosting the opening evening.
FILM FESTIVAL NOVEMBER 2007
Heartland Film Society’s first Scottish Film Weekend:
Opened by John Swinney MSP and his wife Elizabeth Quigley, the first event was the quirky film Incident at Loch Ness, featuring the writer and director Werner Herzog.
The Saturday afternoon session was a collection of Scottish Shorts shown in the auditorium at Dewar’s World of Whisky. The winner of the inaugural Palme Dewar, voted for by the audience, was Ujbaz Izbeneki Has Lost His Soul, written and directed by Neil Jack of Ko Lik Films based in Edinburgh.
The Town Hall in Aberfeldy was well filled for the main event which was a screening of Seachd:The Inaccessible Pinnacle, the first Gaelic feature film to be distributed in the UK. The Aberfeldy Gaelic Choir provided an evocative musical introduction. Those who came early enjoyed a supper of stovies and whisky served up in the small hall courtesy of Fayre and Square.
The final event on Sunday was an enthralling presentation from David Peat, the BAFTA winning documentary filmmaker. Showing clips from his work of three decades, he talked about his approach to documenting events and the importance of building a trusting relationship between himself and his subjects.
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