The National Lottery celebrates its 10th Birthday this year. Thanks to everyone who has played or supported it, over £16 billion has been raised for good causes. National Lottery money has been essential in funding many Scottish films in recent years. The first ever...

Shona Auerbach is an award-winning short film director whose first feature, Dear Frankie, had its UK premiere at Edinburgh. The film got a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, and it won the audience award for best international feature at the LA Film...

Warwick Arts Centre's November and December Film Season includes a weekend of incredible cinema events and special guests. On Thursday 25 November there's a special preview screening of Dear Frankie, by Warwickshire film maker, Shona Auerbach. Shona is an...

ANDREA GIBB: Film writer says Inverclyde has a special hold on her imagination.GREENOCK writer Andrea Gibb is getting ready for one of the biggest weeks in her career with the UK premiere of her second feature film, Dear Frankie. In an exclusive interview with the...

BILLY Boyd, the Lord of the Rings actor, has called on the Scottish Executive to support the establishment of a film studio in Scotland. The Scots star spoke out yesterday at the unveiling of nominations for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA)...

With just days remaining until the start of this year's Kansas International Film Festival (it used to be known as the Halfway to Hollywood fest), organizers have added a slew of films to the lineup. Among the new KIFF titles: • “Dear Frankie”: Little deaf Frankie...

FILM writer Andrea Gibb is celebrating today after two of her films were showered with Scottish BAFTA nominations. Dear Frankie, which was shot in Greenock and Gourock last year, is up for three awards at the glittering ceremony, the equivalent of Scotland’s Oscars....

ACTRESS Emily Mortimer is tipping Glasgow as a potential film capital of Britain. Emily, star of hits such as The 51st State, is in the city filming the family drama Natural History. It's her second film in a row here - last year she starred opposite Ewan McGregor in...

It's been a busy year for Gerard Butler. The one-time Dracula has been chasing ancient relics with Lara Croft and jumping back to the middle ages in the upcoming Timeline, as he tells Bryan Cairns. Most actors would rather pull out their own fingernails than recall...

LONDON --- Miramax Films has acquired Shona Auerbach's Scottish drama "Dear Frankie" for distribution in North and South America, Spain, Italy and Australia. Pic, starring Emily Mortimer and Gerard Butler, is the story of a single mother who writes letters to her deaf...

Miramax Films has inked a deal to acquire Shona Auerbach's directorial debut, "Dear Frankie," in a multiterritory pact that includes North and South American rights. The Emily Mortimer starrer was one of the hotter titles screening at the recent MIFED confab through...

LONDON- - Miramax Films has aquired Shona Auerbach's Scottish drama "Dear Frankie" for distribution in North and South America, Spain, Italy and Australia. The Pic, starring Emily Mortimer and Gerard Butler, is the story of a single mother who writes letter's to her...

A diverse assortment of American and international pictures fills out the star-laden Premieres section of the Sundance Film Festival, while some new works from seldom-represented nations dot the extensive World Cinema and World Documentary categories. The Jan. 15...

Scotland's future depends on one thing: its people. As we enter 2004, we profile the personalities who will be making headlines this year - and during the years to come - in the cultural and political life of the nation. Here, in words and pictures, are some of those...

A LOW-budget Scottish film shot in Greenock is to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival next month, making a dramatic late entry to one of the world's most prestigious events. The appearance of Dear Frankie, starring Emily Mortimer and Gerard Butler, alongside the...

NEW YORK --- Tribeca bashes finished off with full downtown flair this past weekend, with slick back-to-back soirees at some of the neighborhood's grooviest destinations. Friday night featured a 20th anni bash for U.K.-based indie Working Title ("has it really been 20...

ALTHOUGH it is not necessarily a strong year for British film at Cannes, there will be a Scottish presence in the south of France this week, determinedly keeping the country's film industry foremost in the minds of distributors and directors. One Scottish filmmaker...

A GENTLE low-budget British film could be one of the surprise hits of the year after being seized by Miramax, the American movie giant, for initial screening in the United States rather than Britain. It is extremely rare for a British film to be shown in America...

HOLLYWOOD has embraced a low-budget Scottish film about a deaf boy from Greenock - in contrast to British reviewers who dismissed it as sentimental. Film reviewers from Hollywood, where Dear Frankie has already won a major distribution deal, loved the simple tale. In...

TO have your debut feature film in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes is achievement enough. To attract rave reviews from influential US critics, and a standing ovation from your first paying audience, is verging on the unheard of. Little wonder that the director...

Gerard Butler, tipped by some to be the new James Bond, is to star in Natural History, which starts filming in the city later this month. The 34-year-old actor will star with Emily Mortimer and fellow Glasgow actor Sharon Small in the family drama. It also marks a...

Kyle MacLachlan in Ian Iqbal Rashid's "Touch of Pink," which will play on opening night at the Lake Placid Film Festival. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. The fifth-annual Lake Placid Film Festival has announced this year's lineup, with a conscious effort to...

Emily Mortimer on location filming Natural History WELL-KNOWN actress Emily Mortimer is shooting a film in Greenock, Gourock and Port Glasgow over the next seven weeks. In the movie, called Natural History, she plays a single mother who bizarrely hires a father for...

AS RAGS-to-riches tales go, this is one of the more remarkable of British cinematic success stories. It is, after all, the film from nowhere, made by unknowns for a pittance, that yesterday stunned the Cannes critics and stole the heart of canny Miramax supremo Harvey...