For a few dollars less

The weather on the Croisette turned grey, as it does every year, to herald the arrival of the Edinburgh International Film Festival party on Tuesday night.

Festival directors Shane Danielsen and Ginnie Atkinson, who will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the festival in August also announced that patron Sir Sean Connery will be attending for the full 14 days and will take part in a rare In Conversation event. He will be talking to George Reid during the sidebar event, the Festival of Politics, and discussing his views on Scotland, its politics and its place in the world.

One of the stars of the EIFF party was Bob Kelly, who resembles a young, Scottish Quentin Tarantino, is in Cannes promoting his short film A Shot in the West. The western is set in the Drumchapel area of Glasgow and stars David Heyman. Kelly jokes in his broad Glaswegian brogue about setting a western in that particular area that “You had to step over the junkies to get to the horse.”

This young man who pursued actor Robert Carlisle for the starring role only to find he could not change his schedule to accommodate the actor says of the unusual project that he was keen to make a film that was not about drugs, drunks or gangsters so took inspiration from one of his heroes, Sergio Leone.

It is no surprise that 25-year-old Kelly managed to make the film on no budget. This young man could talk the birds from the trees and managed to borrow all of the equipment to make his film, including the aforementioned horse, and persuade the Alex Harvey Band to contribute the soundtrack for no payment too.

Meanwhile, in the official competition, the film funded by Scottish Screen and the Glasgow Film Fund, Red Road, is being very hotly tipped as a front runner for the Palme D’Or. Lead actor Tony Curran, who along with lead actress Kate Dickie, gives a stunning emotional performance, joked that he never dreamed while making the film that he would end up drinking champagne in the Riviera sunshine.

“I like to wander round this year saying to people, do you know who I am? I’m nobody,” he jokes modestly