UK Film Week 2014: Scotland – Year of Homecoming 2014

22 – 28 Sep 2014
CGV MIPEC Tower, Hanoi
CGV Parkson Paragon, HCMC

From British Council:

The glorious Sunshine on Leith musical will open British Council’s 2014 UK Film Week featuring Scottish films.

Scheduled for 22-28 September, this year’s UK Film Week celebrates Scotland as the host country of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which took place in Glasgow in early August this year.

Other feature films to be shown include Shell, Ae Fond Kiss, For Those in Peril, Not Another Happy Ending and Shell, representing a mixture of genres to celebrate the richness of Scottish culture.

The uplifting musical Sunshine on Leith, which is based on the stage hit of the same name and features music by pop-folk band, The Proclaimers, scores a very high rating of 92% on the Rotten Tomatoes review website. Renowned British movie reviewer Mark Kermode, said: “I shed a tear within the first 10 minutes, and spent the rest of the movie beaming like a gibbering, love-struck fool.”

The film promises to charm local audiences through its mesmerising camera work capturing the incredible beauty of Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, also home to the Fringe, the world’s largest arts festival.

The high quality continues with Not Another Happy Ending, set in Glasgow, a comedy about writer’s block. Jane Lockhart cannot write when she is happy. As she is working on the follow-up to her best-selling debut novel, Jane finds herself stuck trying to finish the final chapter. Tom Duvall, the editor of a struggling publishing company, is forced to make her incredibly unhappy.

Ae Fond Kiss and For those in Peril, though contrasting in genres, are both very close to the heart of Vietnamese culture. Ae Fond Kiss is a love story between Roisin, a white woman and Casim, a Pakistani young man whose family have arranged for him to marry his cousin.

They start a relationship but Casim is torn between following his heart and being a good son. Set in an insular Scottish community, For Those in Peril tells a tale of woe as it portrays how local superstition can ruin a young man’s life as he is blamed for the unexplained tragedy of a shipwreck.

Shell “casts a spell with its portrait of cramped lives on a Scottish petrol station forecourt. It keeps the tale on a steady simmer right through to the closing moments, when it spits and sputters into melodrama” (The Guardian).

Cherry Gough, Country Director, British Council Vietnam said: “Scotland has a tremendous cultural heritage: as well as being the home of the world-famous Edinburgh Festival, it has produced many famous writers, artists and musicians. Loch Ness is now familar to Vietnamese people through the Japanese ‘Doraemon’ comics, and Scotland’s stunning cities and landscapes have featured in many films and TV programmes. And, of course, Scottish tartan and the kilt are recognised worldwide!

“This year’s UK Film Week will give you an opportunity to have a closer look to the richness of Scottish culture through five award-winning films including drama, romantic comedy and musical, brilliantly capturing contemporary life in Scotland.”

This year’s film festival also marks the very first time the British Council has partnered with YxineFF to introduce seven short films by young Vietnamese film makers. Six award-winning Scottish short films will also be featured alongside Vietnamese shorts. YxineFF is a local non-for-profit project supporting young filmmakers.

British Council in Vietnam is are also pleased to invite Paul Welsh to Vietnam to deliver two workshops on film pitching, targeting potential film makers in Vietnam. Paul is the founder of Digicult, an independent film company specialising in developing emerging film talent. He also produced Skeletons (2010), a nominee for the Outstanding Debut Feature by a British Director at the 64th British Film Academy Film Awards. In 2013, Lore, a film which he was a co-producer, received the Feature Film Production of the Year Award at the 2013 Screen Producers Australia Awards.

Film schedule (click to enlarge)

Tickets

Free tickets will be distributed at the British Council in the two cities from Mon 15 Sep, 9 am. First come first serve basis, maximum 2 films per person, 2 tickets per film.
British Council Hanoi, 20 Thuy Khue, Hanoi. Tel: 04 3728 1922
British Council HCMC, 25 Le Duan, Dist 1, HCMC. Tel: 08 3823 2862