Top 5 Scottish Films

When the evenings are dark and chilly, curl up in the front of the fire with a DVD of one of our Top 5 Scottish films, chosen by Hannah McGill, Artistic Director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
 
"It's hard to define a 'Scottish' film – made here? Funded here? Filmed here? Scottish talent? – whatever the connection, these films all speak to me of different elements of Scotland and Scottishness," says Hannah.

Gregory's Girl

(Director, Bill Forsyth, 1981)
The happiest, wittiest, sweetest film ever made about love and adolescence... and a great advertisement for what can be achieved with unknown actors on a tiny budget. This film, about a teenage boy infatuated with football playing female classmate, made stars of John Gordon Sinclair and Clare Grogan and won a BAFTA film award.

Trainspotting

(Director, Danny Boyle, 1996)
This Oscar-nominated film has suffered – like early Quentin Tarantino – from over-exposure and being quoted to death. But, if you go back to it, a brilliantly inventive, infectious and dark-spirited film, from the book by Irvine Welsh about a group of friends immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, starring Ewan McGregor.

Young Adam

(Director, David Mackenzie, 2003)
The other end of the equation: still a study of extreme acts, but told in a sedate, poetic, melancholic style. It's about a young traveller working on a river barge who knows more about a dead woman in the river than he's letting on. With excellent performances by Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton and Peter Mullan, it offers a true sense of the mysteries of human character and motivation.

I Know Where I’m Going!

(Directors, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1945)
Powell and Pressburger were the great geniuses of British cinema and this is a lovely, heartfelt tale of going to the middle of nowhere and getting to know yourself. The Scottish connection was being shot on location in Scotland and the Scottish filmmaking brothers Andrew Macdonald and Kevin Macdonald are Pressburger's grandsons.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

(Director, Robert Neame, 1969)
This adaptation of Muriel Spark's brilliant novel, stars Maggie Smith as a liberate school teacher at an Edinburgh girl's school between the first and second world wars. Although very different from the novel, it is no less engaging, and very sharp about a particular kind of Edinburgh lifestyle.

Hannah McGill

Artistic Director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival since 2006, Hannah was born in Shetland, grew up in Lincolnshire, and studied English Literature and Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow. She has worked as music editor of The List, TV critic for The Scotsman and film critic for The Herald. A published writer of short fiction and drama, and has had both plays and short stories broadcast by BBC Radio 4 and contributed regularly to arts programmes on BBC Scotland, BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival

The Edinburgh International Film Festival has devoted itself to discovering and promoting the very best in international cinema. The brightest new talents can rub shoulders with their filmmaking idols and gain behind-the-scenes guidance, plus filmmakers are accessible to the audience, through post-film questions and answer sessions and interviews. The festival's move from August to June gives it an opportunity to assert its status among the world’s leading film events, as well as allowing members of the Scottish film industry full benefit of a film-focused event of international status on home turf.

Related Links

• Edinburgh International Film Festival
• Glasgow Film Festival