Shetland Arts will take a UK-wide part in the London 2012 Festival that celebrates the London 2012 Olympic Games. Shetland Arts was invited to submit a proposal relating to Screenplay, our annual film festival, and came up with ‘A Hansel of Film – Shetland to Southampton and Back’, a relay of screenings of short films made by the public in every part of the UK, kicked off in Shetland on 10^th June by the arrival of the Olympic Torch in the isles as it reaches its UK most northerly point. The various programmes of films will be relayed between participating venues by ‘runners’, that is, creative and energetic individuals who will employ whatever means of transport they can devise to get the right films to the right venue on time. This will culminate in a marathon screening of over 120 short films at Screenplay 2012 between 4^th and 9^th September.

The project will take films made by Shetlanders and others to over twenty venues across the UK and will form a celebration of ‘home made’ short films similar to that which takes place annually at the Screenplay film festival. Head of Development Kathy Hubbard said “When we sat down and thought about what made Screenplay special, we all agreed that it was the evening of films made by local people and those connected with the isles.  The atmosphere is always really supportive, it’s tremendous to see the creativity of people of all ages – but most of all it’s fun. And it was that spirit which we wanted to offer as a hansel to other regions and nations of the UK during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and to all those who will be taking part in the project.”

Acclaimed film critics Mark Kermode and Linda Ruth Williams, who are the curators of Screenplay, will be very active in promoting the project across the country. They will be greeting the ‘runner’ at The Harbour Lights Cinema in Southampton at the project’s half-way point, but will also be visiting other participating venues in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  Said Mark and Linda, “We are delighted to be launching this exciting, nationally inclusive film relay, which will encompass all regions and nations of the UK and will spread the spirit of the London  2012 Festival from Shetland in the north to Southampton in the south and back again, taking in many points east and west along the way. We are looking forward to partnering up with cinemas and film-makers across the UK who are as enthusiastic as we are about people making their own films and taking movies on the road.”

Director of Shetland Arts, Gwilym Gibbons said: “Shetland Arts is thrilled to be taking an active part in the London 2012 Festival. It is a tribute to the creativity of our isles that Shetland has a role in delivering a UK-wide film project of this nature. It also comes at a very exciting time for us in the opening year of Mareel, Shetland’s new £12.2m music, cinema and creative industries centre. We will be inviting representatives from each of the participating regions and nations to come and join us back in Shetland for Screenplay 2012, making it a truly celebratory event.”

Ruth Mackenzie, Director of Culture at London 2012 said: “Thanks to Shetland Arts and all our cultural stars, in the summer of 2012 the London 2012 Festival will showcase our world leading cultural institutions, and demonstrate how dedicated we are at creating and celebrating world class talent.”

A ‘hansel’ is a Shetland dialect word meaning a gift that marks an event such as the launch of a new boat, the birth of a child or the creation of a new enterprise.  Mr Gibbons said: “‘A Hansel of Film’ will celebrate the special differences between our regions and nations, capturing stories through the diverse languages and dialects, landscapes and seascapes of the British Isles. The films that we will screen will be born out of the very different experiences we all have, and heavily influenced by the power of the places in which we all live.”

Hansel definition: ‘a gift to commemorate an inaugural occasion, the launching of a new boat, the birth of a child, a new home, new enterprise.’  John J Graham – The Shetland Dictionary.

About the Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival: The London 2012 Cultural Olympiad is the largest cultural celebration in the history of the modern Olympic and Paralympic Movements.  Spread over four years, it is designed to give everyone in the UK a chance to be part of London 2012 and inspire creativity across all forms of culture, especially among young people.

The culmination of the Cultural Olympiad will be the London 2012 Festival, bringing leading artists from all over the world together from 21 June 2012 in this UK-wide festival – a chance for everyone to celebrate London 2012 through dance, music, theatre, the visual arts, fashion, film and digital innovation.

Principal funders of the Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival are Arts Council England, Legacy Trust UK and the Olympic Lottery Distributor.  BP and BT are Premier Partners of the Cultural Olympiad and the London 2012 Festival.

Visit the project’s official website: http://hansel2012.org

For more details visit: www.london2012.com/festival

For press enquiries contact Lisa Ward, Marketing Officer: lisa.ward@shetlandarts.org or 01595 743 742

For project enquiries contact Kathy Hubbard, Head of Development: kathy.hubbard@shetlandarts.org or 01595 743 843

One of Britain’s most versatile and popular actors, Jim Broadbent, is also making a very welcome appearance at Britain’s most northerly film festival. Jim has appeared in an impressive list of award-winning films and box office hits, including, “Bridget Jones’ Diary”, “Moulin Rouge”, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows”, “The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe” and “The Damned United”. The festival will feature screenings of “Topsy-Turvy”, and “Longford” on Saturday 3^rd September, with Jim holding question and answer sessions after both screenings.

Amongst the screenings of films for young people is “Hans Christian Andersen” starring the incomparable Danny Kaye and preceded by a quick sing-along practise session with Mark Kermode of the “Ugly Duckling” song.

Other children’s events include the latest “Winnie The Pooh” and two special programmes of short films put together by the London International Animation Festival.

The work of local filmmakers will be showcased in “Home Made in Shetland” on Thursday 1 September. As well as the ten submissions shown at this event there will be continuous screenings of locally made film at the Shetland Museum and Archive auditorium during the weekend.

Independent film making is celebrated by screenings of “Chico and Rita” (one of Mark Kermode’s top ten films of last year), “Life, Above All” (winner of the Francois Chalais Prize at Cannes), and Gareth Edwards’ impressive debut feature, “Monsters”.

Making a return to the festival with “The Space Between”, the Edinburgh-based film he wrote and directed, is Tim Barrow who previously produced “The Inheritance”, an award winning Scottish road movie which was screened at Screenplay 2009.

Kicking off the two-and-a-bit day book bonanza, on Friday 2^nd September, will be Mark Kermode. The leading film critic, writer and broadcaster will talk about his new book, “The Good, The Bad and the Multiplex”, answer questions and sign books. Mark is also co-curator of Screenplay 2011, Shetland’s 5^th Annual Film Festival.

Friday evening will also see the Launch of Ecstatics: A Language of Birds, a collaboration between artist Laura Drever and poet Lesley Harrison.  The book is published by Brae editions and the the publisher acknowledges financial support from Creative Scotland. The festival will also feature an exhibition of Laura’s original artwork for the book. Publisher, Alistair Peebles will also present an illustrated talk, entitled, “Up The Brae! Adventures in Small Press Publishing.” The evening’s fare will be rounded off by “Horseplay”, the book and film based Improv Show starring, Allen Chalmers, Sandy Nelson and Raymond Mearns, three of Scotland’s most talented comedians.

The spirit of Wordplay has always been one of participation, and there is plenty for folks of all ages to get stuck into. Saturday morning will see two writing workshops: one run by poet David Wheatley, for poets, entitled “Poetry & Place”. The other run by Roger Hutchinson, author of “Calum’s Road”: “Local People, Local Places” will encourage writers to use local and family history as a starting place for their writing. Another book related workshop will be run by Carol Dunbar, Education Officer at the Pier art Centre in Stromness. This all day workshop will introduce simple book binding techniques, including traditional Japanese stab bindings. Carol will also run a shorter workshop for young people on Sunday 4^th at 3.15pm in which 10-15 year olds will find out how to make a hard-back bound concertina book – no glue, no stitching.

Further workshops include Blast Off! Led by celebrated author and illustrator, Sally Kindberg, who has drawn pictures for three Bloomsbury comic strip books and is currently working on a fourth one about dinosaurs.  The interactive comic strip workshops are suitable for 5-11 year olds and will run on both Saturday and Sunday.

Also for young people (7-12), will be “If I Can Write, You Can Write’, which will feature, perennial children’s favourite, Viv French who will be running an interactive session, in which she will talk about her series, “Tales From the Five Kingdoms”. Viv will also run a workshop for adults about writing fiction for children.

One of the three makars, is Magi Gibson, the first Stirling Makar for 3oo years, who also writes under the name Maggi Gibson for young people. Maggi will run an event for 8-13 year olds, featuring the fun and feisty “Seriously Sassy” books, published by Puffin. She will also appear with her partner, the comic novelist Ian Macpherson, in BeMUSed, an entertaining session of poetry and stories, which will round off the entertainment on Saturday.

The festival line up is rich with poets, many who are also celebrated as writers in other forms. Making his first appearance at the festival is Simon Armitage CBE, the poet, novelist and broadcaster whose event will take place on Saturday afternoon. The multi award-winning writer will read from his work and answer questions from the audience.

Another celebrated writer, poet and dramatist, Liz Lochhead, Scotand’s Makar is making a very welcome return to the UK’s most northerly book festival. As well as reading from her work, Liz will be in conversation with broadcaster James Naughtie, making his first appearance at Wordplay.

James Naughtie, has one of the best known voices on Radio, presenting Today and Bookclub for BBC Radio 4. James’s session, on Sunday afternoon, is entitled, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Studio”.

Andrew Greig will need little introduction, as a poet and novelist of renown. He will appear alongside his friend Ron Butlin, the Edinburgh Makar, a novelist of international renown and a celebrated librettist.  Mr Greig will also appear in “At The Loch of the Green Corrie”, talking about the life and work of another of his friends, the late, great Norman MacCaig. Poetry will also feature on Sunday afternoon with a joint reading by David Wheatley, one of Ireland’s finest contemporary poets, who will be joined by Scotland’s very own John Glenday.

The festival also features novelist and broadcaster, Jonathan Meades. As well as an appearance by the man himself, in which he will read from the book he is currently working on and speak more generally about places and their relationship to fiction there will be screenings of two of his films, “The Isle of Rust” and “Surrealism”.

The relationship between Islands and both fiction and non-fiction is the subject of another session featuring journalist and author of best selling “Calum’s Road” Roger Hutchinson and the celebrated novelist, poet (and organic gardener) Margaret Elphinstone.

Shetland has a vibrant writing community, which is reflected in several of the events, including the Shetland launch of “These Islands We Sing” (Polygon 2011) edited Kevin MacNeil and featuring no less than twenty one poets, either native to Shetland, and/or currently living here. The event will feature Kevin himself, Alex Cluness, Lise Sinclair, and Roseanne Watt.

Lise Sinclair a poet and song writer from Fair Isle will also playing a few songs from her current work in progress, “A Time To Keep”, a cycle of songs inspired by George Mackay Brown’s book of the same title which she is writing with Icelandic composer Astvaldur Traustasson. Lise’s project has received support from both Creative Scotland and Scotland’s Islands.

Launching her first novel, “And Then Forever” (Shetland Times 2011) is another native of Shetland, Christine De Luca, who has also has five collections of poetry published. Christine is also an active member of Shore Poets, Edinburgh and a member of Hansel Co-operative Press.

Hansel Cooperative Press is a not-for-profit cooperative for writers and artists, which promotes literary and artistic works relating to Orkney and Shetland. The festival will host the launch of their new publication, a translation by William (Billy) Tait’s of Francois Villon’s “Grand Testament” which will feature readings by local broadcaster, Mary Blance and poet Jim Mainland as well as contributions by another local poet and scholar, Mark Ryan Smith and the Archivist, Brian Smith.

Another feature of Wordplay over the last few years, has been the Prize Giving for the Shetland Young Writers Award. The competition, now run by Shetland Library has been going for twenty years.

Wordplay also has a long history of supporting Shetland Dialect and Shetland writing and this year sees the showing of an exciting new multi media production, “Kirsty and Da Snarravoe Njuggle”. The show will feature a mixture of live acting, original film sequences and shadow puppetry. This project is funded by Scotland’s Islands and run by Shetland Islands Council’s Creative Links and Drama Co-ordinator.

The festival will feature a glorious variety of events including writing workshops as well as author events, children’s events and will feature an eclectic mix of writing, including, children’s fiction, literary fiction, poetry, erotic fiction, film criticism, song writing and writing for the stage. an interactive online programme can be viewed at Wordplay.

Celebrating Wordplay’s close connections with Screenplay, Shetland’s Film Festival, the event will feature renowned, film critic, writer and broadcaster, Mark Kermode who will make a welcome return to Wordplay in order to talk about, read from, ask questions about and even sign his new book, “It’s Only a Movie: Reel Life Adventures of a Film Obsessive” (Random House).

Continuing the celebration of the relationship between page and screen is Simon King who will make a return visit to Shetland in order to appear at the festival after the highly successful launch of “The Shetland Diaries” in the Town Hall earlier this year.

Wordplay will feature a strong musical element this year, in harmony with Screenplay.  This will take the shape of the legendary Michael Gray, the world’s leading authority on the work of Bob Dylan whose pioneering work, “Song and Dance Man: The Art of Bob Dylan” led the way in developing a literary appreciation of the man’s work. Thirty year s and two editions later we have Song and Dance Man III, a book of genuine weight, which contains a 152 page study of Dylan’s use of the lyric poetry of the pre-war blues in his work. This will be explored in his second talk of the weekend, “Bob Dylan and the Poetry of the Blues”. Michael Gray, who is renowned as a thoroughly engaging and entertaining speaker, has also written a book about the great bluesman, Blind Willie McTell, “Hand me My Travelling Shoes: in Search of Blind Willie McTell” (Bloomsbury) which is the title of his first talk.

Another key element of the music literature theme is provided by Will Kaufman, Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Central Lancashire who will be doing some hard travelling himself in order to present his acclaimed live documentary, “ Hard Times and Hard Travelling: the Life and Times of Woody Guthrie.” Dr Kaufman, himself no mean singer and guitarist provides what Ralph McTell has described as “the fastest hour and a half you will ever experience” in a presentation that will involve images and live performances oby Dr Kaufman of  the great American icon’s songs as well as other songs of the period.

As well as the music thread, the festival will have a strong dramatic component featuring both the writing element of the art form and performances. Both of these elements will be explored in the session with the celebrated dramatist, David Harrower which will include a rehearsed reading from his 2007 play “Blackbird” (Faber&Faber) as well as a talk by the writer and a Q&A session. Blackbird won the Critic’s Award for Theatre in Scotland and the Olivier Award for Best Play in 2007.

There will also be drama from closer to home in the form of a series of special performances of ten minute plays written in Shetland over the last year and performed by members of Serpentine Drama, a community group, based in Shetland with the aim of encouraging the writing and performance of new drama in Shetland.

There will also be drama for children, provided by The Story Tellers who will give two performances of “Tales from The Gypsy Caravan.” ‘The Storytellers’ was formed by Pendle Productions in 1985 as a Touring Theatre Company to take adaptations of classics to all types of venues. The Company is directed by the founder, Timothy Lince whose international work includes a 17 year association with the BBC, including working as a commissioned script and musical Writer/Director, Artistic Director of Manitou Arts Centre in Toronto and numerous major musical and theatrical tours. “Tales from the Gypsy Caravan” combines the rich tapestry of traditional storytelling with animated performance, music and song to create a production that is sure to both entertain and enthral.
The first Wordplay, in 2003, was an event primarily for children, and since then the festival has welcomed a long list of great writers for younger readers. This year will see a series of events, run by children’s writers, including Shetland Arts Writer in Residence, Chrissie Gittins. Chrissie’s poems have won prizes, been broadcast on BBCR4 and animated for Cbeebies television. Her adult poetry collections are Armature and I’ll Dress One Night As You. Her children’s poetry collections were shortlisted for the CLPE Award; all three are Choices for the Children’s Poetry Bookshelf. She writes radio drama and her short story collection is Family Connections.  As well as a session for youngsters, Chrissie will take part in a poetry reading for adults.

Needing little introduction to Shetland’s young readers is Valerie Watt, who has recently published her third dialect book for bairns.  ‘Bobby an da Burland Pearls’ inspired the musical of the same name.  With ‘Peerie Mootie’ and ‘Da Peesterleeties’ she has toured Shetland schools and nurseries, reading her stories, playing her fiddle and getting bairns involved in roleplay.  It is also rumoured she lends a hand to Tushie Truncherfaece, the world’s only trow columnist, who writes in Shetland Life. Valerie has made several highly successful appearances at Wordplay in the past, including a shadow puppet performance of Da Peesterleeties. This time round she will run a creative writing workshop based on “Bobby an da Burland Pearls” which will feature the puppets from the musical and her own excellent fiddle playing.

With her book “Tarantula Tide”, a prize winning thriller set in Shetland, Sharon Tregenza, will be making her first visit to the festival where she will present a solo event for children. This session will be based on the novel and will be all about the animals that feature in the novel and the animal smuggling trade.  Sharon will also take part in a joint event with Janis Mackay, herself a prize winning author of “Magnus Fin and the Ocean Quest.” Janis will also run a solo session for children, based on the oceanic adventure story that will involve the children imaginatively in creating their own sea monsters.

Poetry lovers will have the opportunity of almost total immersion in their favourite artform, including a reading by Christopher Reid, whose book,  “A Scattering” won the Costa Best book Prize in 2009, making Mr Reid one of only three poets to have ever been honoured in this way – the other two being Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes.  The poet will read from his work and answer questions.

Saturday will feature two poetry double headers: first up will be Christie Williamson from Yell, now living in Glasgow, who recently won the Callum MacDonald Memorial Award for his pamphlet “Arc O Mons,” a translation from the original Spanish into Shetland Dialect, published by Hansel Cooperative Press. Christie recently featured at Stanza International Poetry festival in St Andrews and will join Christine De Luca who will be launching her new collection “North End of Eden” (Luath). She has now had published five volumes of poetry and enjoys a high standing in the national literature scene and is a prize-winning poet, writing in both English and Shetland dialect.

This reading will be followed by a special guest appearance from Orkney, by Nalini Paul, the current George Mackay Brown Fellow and Morag MacInnes. Nalini Paul has done a great amount of work in collaboration with visual artists and her most recent work is “Skirlags” (Red Squirrel Press). Morag MacInnes regularly contributes to the New Shetlander and has recently had published “Alias Isobel” a cycle of narrative poetry about fellow Orcadian, Isabel Gunn who gained employment in the Hudson Bay Company, disguised as a man.

From further afield, Vancouver, in fact and no less welcome is Miranda Pearson whose poetry has been described as “deeply startling and accomplished.” She has now had published three collections of poetry: “Prime” (Porcepic 2001), “Aviary “(Oolichan 2006), which won the Alfred G Bailey prize and “Harbour” (Oolichan 2009). Reading with Miranda will be Chrissie Gittins also a prize-winning poet. Her adult poetry collections are “Armature” (Arc, 2003) and “I’ll Dress One Night As You” (Salt, 2009) described by Moniza Alvi as “…Lively, accessible and gently surprising…”

The novel will also feature prominently at Wordplay, in the very new forms of “Da Happy Laand” (Luath 2010) by Shetland’s very own Robert Alan Jamieson, his fourth described by Kevin MacNeil as being  “… big in scope, rich in ideas, uncompromising in execution.” The other brand new book to be featured this year will be “And the Land Lay Still” by James Robertson (Penguin 2010) which was described by Irvine Welsh, in his review for The Guardian, as “nothing less than a landmark for the novel in Scotland”.

Making her first appearance at Wordplay is Mitzi Szereto, author, blogger (Errant Ramblings) and creator/presenter of Mitzi TV. She has published several books, including In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales. Mitzi pioneered the erotic writing workshop in the UK and Europe, and has lectured in creative writing at several British universities. She edited the first erotica anthology to feature a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. As well as giving a reading and Q&A session, Mitzi Szereto will run a two-hour workshop on how to write erotic fiction.

Another first for the festival is the arrival of Book Camp, a three hour master class on how to get published in the world of fiction for children which will be run by Julia Churchill a literary agent with the Greenhouse Agency and Leah Thaxton, senior publisher with Egmont, the largest Children’s Book publisher in the UK. The session will consist of an hour, from the agent’s perspective, an hour from the publisher’s perspective and a further hour’s opportunity to discuss questions from the floor. As with all the Wordplay workshops, advanced booking is necessary for this session.

Shetland Arts Literature Development Officer Donald Anderson said, “ It is immensely exciting to see such a wide variety of writers and events. I think that our volunteer curators, Genny White and Christine Hughson, have made a great contribution in helping us to bring together such a fine programme.”

Shetland Arts would like to thank the event’s main funders, Creative Scotland and Sponsors BP/Sullom Voe Terminal; Brudolff Hotels and Shetland Family Centre Services for their continued support of Wordplay.

Tickets for all events are available from Shetland Box Office, Islesburgh Community Centre, Lerwick – 01595 745 555.

Advanced booking is recommended for all events.

The programme for each festival can be seen on the Wordplay and Screenplay pages.

Also appearing will be film critic, Mark Kermode, who with Linda Ruth Williams will curate Screenplay, the film festival which will be based in the Garrison Theatre and will run from Tuesday, August 31^st through to Sunday 5^th September and will feature actor Jason Isaacs and a wide variety of films, including work by local film makers. Further information about both festivals will be published in due course.

Wordplay – More information and full programme

Screenplay – More information and full programme

Do you have strong opinions about films? Would you like to share them? As Mareel steadily rises from the ground Shetland Arts is looking for the best local reviewers who can get across what a film means to them in an entertaining and engaging way. Whether you want to praise, provoke or challenge, what matters is your passion for the Big Screen and how you communicate it.

To this end Shetland Arts is launching its first ‘Shetland Film Critic of the Year’ Award, whereby film lovers are invited to send in a review of any film screened at The Garrison this summer.  The winners will receive their awards from the BBC’s Culture Show presenter Mark Kermode on Sunday 5^th September at the Screenplay Film Festival.

Festival organiser Kathy Hubbard said that they were looking for people who can do more than simply say what happened in a film. “The story is important, of course, but we’re looking at the impact it has on the viewer – what they felt about it and why, what struck them about the way it was directed, how effective the actors were at conveying their characters, what the script was like, how well it was shot and edited.  There is so much that goes into making a feature film; we want the reviewer to go beyond the storyline and make us really think about films rather than just passively watching them.”

The review entries will be judged by top film critics Mark Kermode and Linda Ruth Williams.  There will be a cash prize for the winners of the two sections (12 – 16yrs and 17yrs and over) and the closing date is Monday 16^th August.

More information and full guidelines for entries are available from Kathy Hubbard on 01595 743843, kathy.hubbard@shetlandarts.org or you can download Film Review Guidelines here.

Mark Kermode heads for the UK’s most northerly bus shelter before welcoming Terence Davies to the Shetland Film Festival

Shetland young filmmakers group Maddrim Media will welcome film critic Mark Kermode (and his mum) to be guests of honour to the UK’s smallest film festival screening in the UK’s most northerly bus Shelter this Thursday. Complete with tickets, ushers, popcorn and ice-cream. Maddrim will be showing Mark some of the films they have made for Screenplay ’09, Shetland’s third annual film festival. The venue, Bobby’s Bus Shelter, virtually at the UK’s most northerly point, is something of a Shetland institution. Some ten years ago a wicker sofa and table appeared in the shelter, with no-one claiming responsibility. Soon afterwards a small TV was added, followed by a ‘hot snacks’ counter; since then, the tiny bus shelter has had curtains, a computer, hamsters, fairy lights, paintings, reading materials and much more installed, all secretly, and much to the delight of anyone who has to wait for the school bus there on a wet morning – http://tinyurl.com/m5cf32

Shetland Arts’ third film festival, Screenplay 09, got off to a flying start on Fair Isle last weekend (29/30 Aug) with enthusiastic audiences enjoying a varied programme of films. The festival moves on to Whalsay, Aith, Yell and Unst during the week, including a very special screening at Bobby’s Bus Shelter in Baltasound.

This year Screenplay 09 has two strands – the first being on a theme of ‘Compass Points’, where the films have a connection with north, south, east or west either in their titles, their content or the countries in which they were made. So, the audience will be going north to Iceland with Heima, with a free screening of Sigur Ros’ impromptu series of concerts across Iceland in 2006; south with Sir Edward Shackleton and the crew of the ‘Endurance’, with Frank Hurley’s original 1916 documentary footage; east with Howl’s Moving Castle and the extraordinary Waltz With Bashir; and west to Skye with Seachd and The Inheritance, to name but a few.

The north of England features largely in the festival’s second strand, the works of acclaimed director Terence Davies. Arts Development Manager Kathy Hubbard said “We are honoured to have one of Britain’s greatest living film-makers, Terence Davies, visiting the festival this year to talk about his films. Of Time and the City, his most recent film, has gathered enormous critical acclaim worldwide, and will close the festival on the Sunday evening”.

Other film professionals coming to Screenplay include Simon Miller and Joanne Cockwell (the director and screenplay writer of Seachd, the first Gaelic film to achieve national release), TV producers Foz Allan and Matthew Read, writer/producer Tim Barrow and Anne Mensah, who is responsible for commissioning drama UK wide for the BBC.

Screenplay will promote all sorts of moving image: archive material, movie classics such as East of Eden with James Dean, late night features, works by independent filmmakers, animation for all age groups (including some excellent short films from the National Film Board of Canada), music video and feature film, plus the regular audience favourite – an evening of new short films made in Shetland. There will also be a television strand, with a screening of an episode of the BBC’s Robin Hood directed by Douglas Mackinnon, followed by a panel discussion including Mark Greig (writer of Ashes to Ashes, The Bill, Life on Mars and Taggart) on adapting work for TV, which should be of great interest to anyone considering writing or working in television.

The second strand is a ‘Compass Points’ theme running through the rest of the programme, going north to Iceland with a free late night screening of Sigur Ros’ Heima, south with South (the 1919 actual documentary footage of Shackleton’s expedition to the South Atlantic, east with a James Dean classic East of Eden, and west to Skye for Seachd: the Inaccessible Pinnacle, the first Gaelic film to achieve international release. As an added treat, the film’s director (Simon Miller) and screenplay writer (Jo Cockwell) will be visiting the festival to talk about their work.

Further forays into the east are represented by the fabulous Japanese animation, Howl’s Moving Castle, and the extraordinary animated story of one Israeli’s memories of a massacre in the Lebanon, Waltz with Bashir.

There will be screenings at various ‘compass points’ around Shetland – Fair Isle, Baltasound, Whalsay and Aith – but I’ll tell you about those (and about our plans for promoting Shetland’s own home made product) in another posting.

Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to welcoming back our curators Mark Kermode and Linda Ruth Williams. Apart from being utterly passionate about cinema (and extremely knowledgable), they are generous with their time and great fun to be with.

Come and see all of it, film lovers - and discover what a mole feels like when it emerges, blinking into the sunlight after a prolonged spell in the dark. And they don’t even get to see the movies.