Filmhouse Cinema and Drambuie today announced a brand new partnership that will see the Scottish drinks brand support a series of film seasons that will bring “A Taste of the Extraordinary” to Edinburgh cinema audiences during the next twelve months.

This innovative sponsorship, between the Scotch whisky spirit and Edinburgh’s home of cultural cinema, will kick-off with a season of seven of the nine surviving silent films by Alfred Hitchcock. These films, recently restored by the BFI, will be brought to Scottish audiences for the first time accompanied by live soundtrack performances. The hidden Hitchcock gems will be shown at Filmhouse during November, with further “A Taste of the Extraordinary” cinema seasons to follow in the coming months.

Rod White, Head of Filmhouse said, “For decades now Filmhouse has showcased the very best cinema from around the world, including new releases, archive titles, seasons and festivals. Our collaboration with Drambuie is a first of its kind partnership for Filmhouse and over the next year we look forward to working with them on bringing “A Taste of the Extraordinary” to our audiences, starting in November with the Hitchcock Silent Films.”

Vicki Wonders, Senior Brand Manager at The Drambuie Liqueur Company Ltd, said: “This is an exciting and relevant collaboration for Drambuie. As an internationally recognised, family-owned brand with its roots still firmly in Scotland, it gives us the opportunity to bring a series of ‘firsts’ to our consumers in Edinburgh. By adding a series of unique screenings to the already outstanding offering that the Filmhouse curates, we are enriching the cultural experience of the audience. By offering them the opportunity to reacquaint themselves with the brand itself with complimentary cocktails being served throughout the season we really are offering ‘A Taste of the Extraordinary’ to Edinburgh.

For further information please visit www.filmhousecinema.com / www.drambuie.com

Contact: For Filmhouse, victoria.rycroft@cmi-scotland.co.uk or

For Drambuie, grace@wcommunications.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

Filmhouse was opened in 1979 and has since been one of the leading entertainment and cultural venues in Edinburgh, showcasing an array of cinema. Throughout the year Filmhouse showcases the best cinema from across the world, including new feature films, re-releases, retrospectives, and a variety of mini-seasons and festivals, as well as playing host each June to its sister organisation the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Filmhouse is supported by Creative Scotland, The City of Edinburgh Council and Europa Cinemas.

The Centre for the Moving Image (CMI) was founded in 2010 with a vision to be at the forefront of film and the moving image in Scotland. The CMI currently comprises the EIFF, Edinburgh Filmhouse and Edinburgh Film Guild and its aim is to lead, inspire, educate and entertain in the moving image space. The CMI is currently developing an ambitious plan to create new businesses and initiatives in Scotland related to film thought and practice. Drambuie is an extraordinary blend of the finest aged Scotch whisky, spices, and heather honey. The recipe was created more than 260 years ago exclusively for Prince Charles Edward Stuart of Scotland. Drambuie has always been produced in Scotland. It was first produced at The Broadford Hotel on the Isle of Skye and in 1909 production was taken to Edinburgh. Chosen by the cellars of Buckingham Palace, the House of Lords and sent to the British Army during two World Wars, Drambuie quickly gained popularity.

In 1950s America, Drambuie became synonymous with the classic cocktail favoured by the Rat Pack – The Rusty Nail™. Today Drambuie is enjoyed neat, over ice and as a long refreshing drink mixed with soda or ginger beer. The new Drambuie 15 Year Old is a whisky connoisseur’s expression of Drambuie, best sipped and savoured neat or over ice.

For more information visit www.drambuie.com, facebook.com/UKDrambuie or @Drambuie.

The latest in the lucrative Astérix franchise, the £50million Astérix and Obélix: God Save Britannia will open the French Film Festival UK with premieres in four cities – London (CinéLumière), Edinburgh (Filmhouse), Glasgow(GFT) and Dundee (DCA) on 8, 9, 10 and 11 November respectively.

The spectacular extravaganza adapted from René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s original 1966 comic book Astérix in Britain features a stellar cast with Edoard Baer as Astérix, Gérard Depardieu as his rotund sidekick Obélix and Catherine Deneuve incarnating the Queen of England.

The film only opens in France on 17 October and had its avant-première at the British Film Festival in Dinard, the FFF UK’s opposite number across the Channel.

The fourth instalment of the franchise follows the glorious legions of Rome led by Julius Caesar as they invade Britain. Astérix and Obélix cross the Channel to help Anticlimax and the Queen of the Britons stand strong against the invading Romans. The year is 50 BC and Caesar is hungry for new conquests … but naturally there is a certain resistance.

Like Braveheart before it, the production was partly filmed in Ireland doubling for Scottish locations.The Festival organisers have invited guests from the film team – and await confirmations.

The 20th edition of the annual Festival (from 8 November to 2 December) which originally began in Scotland’s leading cinemas Edinburgh Filmhouse and Glasgow Film Theatre before encompassing many other location across the UK including a strong London, features a bumper programme of retrospectives and tributes (Chantal Akerman and Jacques Demy) and particular close-ups on aspects of francophone cinema with a special Québec strand.

Richard Mowe, director and co-founder of the event said “It’s difficult to believe that two decades have flown by – almost in a flash.” Mowe who has received one of France’s highest honours (Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres from the Ministry of Culture) for his work, continued: “After The Artist and Untouchable French cinema is on roll. The new Astérix will set us off with a high profile bang – and the rest of the programme is as vital and varied as ever.”

www.frenchfilmfestival.co.uk

The 20th edition, embracing French and francophone cinema in all its diversity, in key towns and cities around the country features a bumper programme bursting with variety and vitality. The main Festival runs from 8 November to 2 December 2012.

The event opens with a bang: the UK première in four cities (London, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee) of Astérix and Obélix: God Save Britannia / Astérix et Obélix: Au Service de Sa Majesté, a £50 million extravaganza adapted from René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s original 1966 comic book Astérix in Britain. It features a stellar cast with Edoard Baer as Astérix, Gérard Depardieu as his rotund sidekick Obélix and Catherine Deneuve incarnating the Queen of England. It only opens in France on 17 October and had its avant-première at the British Film Festival in Dinard, the FFF UK’s opposite number across the Channel.

The Festival puts a major retrospective focus on the work of Chantal Akerman, the Belgian filmmaker, who as been described as one of the boldest cinematic visionaries of the past quarter century and has a body of work that is singular and influential. The season, curated by Marion Schmid, Professor of French Literature and Film at the University of Edinburgh, will see Akerman appear in person in Edinburgh, London and Glasgow to present her latest film Almayer’s Folly / La Folie Almayer, brilliantly adapted from Joseph Conrad’s debut novel, a stunning meditation on colonialism, racism and one man’s obsessive love for his daughter.

The Panorama section features contemporary dramas with insights into the way we live now and vital global concerns by such directors as Philippe Lioret (All Our Desires), Cédric Kahn (A Better Life) and Moussa Touré (La Pirogue) to a hard-edged thriller from Pierre Jolivet (Armed Hands) and sophisticated comedy from Anne Fontaine (My Worst Nightmare) and Noémie Lvovsky (Camille Rewinds) and childhood nostalgia (War of the Buttons).

Discovery uncovers new promising talents among them such strong female directors as sisters Delphine and Muriel Coulin (17 Women) and Valérie Donizelli (Declaration of War) as well as actor turned director Jalil Lespert with his second feature Headwinds. Pierre Schoeller who made Versailles, joins the array with his highly regarded second outing The Minister. There are refreshing debuts from François Pirot with Mobile Home, an ingenious road movie, and Sophie Lellouche’s Paris-Manhattan, a romantic comedy of charm with more than touch of Woody Allen. Also making a mark are the hit What’s in a Name (Mathieu Delaporte, Alexandre de laPatellière) and A World Without Women (Guillaume Brac).

As part of the Festival’s wider horizons a special welcome is given for the first time to The Québec Cinema Showcase with a representative selection of features and shorts including Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways.

There are two animation delights in Patrice Leconte’s witty and ultimately upbeat The Suicide Shop and the improbable friendship between a bear and a mouse Ernest and Celestine. Documentaries comprise Raymond Depardon’s evocative essay Journal de France and Paul Lacoste’s sumptuous food feast Step Up to the Plate plus a series of Portraits de Paris from different directors

Cinema heritage makes a strong impression with the stunning restoration of Georges Méliès’ pioneering A Trip to the Moon from 1902  (and a documentary about its rebirth The Extraordinary Journey) as well as classic titles from René Clément, Jacques Demy, and Georges Franju.

Exclusive previews of films due to be seen shortly on UK screens have been compiled with distributors Soda (Renoir and Journal de France), Swipe Films (You Will be My Son), Lionsgate (Rebellion), Our Children (Peccadillo) and Partners in Crime (StudioCanal).

To date confirmed Festival guests include Chantal Akerman (Allmayer’s Folly); Pierre Jolivet (Armed Hands); Eric Lange (The Extraordinary Voyage); Sophie Lellouche (Paris-Manhattan); François Pirot, Arthur Dupont, Guillaume Couix (Mobile Home) and Noémie Lovsky (Camille Rewinds). Updates via website.

A photographic odyssey through the two decades of the Festival will adorn the walls of partner hotel Sofitel St James in London and the café-bar of partner venue Edinburgh Filmhouse for the event’s duration, an exhibition curated by the festival’s film and image crew Otto Koota and Peter Rebac whose documentary on 20 years of French cinema, Vingts ans dèja will be available to sample at select screenings and online.

Musician Jason Kouchak has a new role as the Festival’s music director, playing at various gala occasions including a launch in Paris on 17 October hosted at his residence by Sir Peter Ricketts, the British Ambassador to France.

For further information, interview requests, screeners and images, contact: Adrienne Benassy, Press Officer, French Film Festival UK 07776 848928 communication@frenchfilmfestival.org.uk

PARTICIPATING CINEMAS IN SCOTLAND: EDINBURGH FILMHOUSE, EDINBURGH DOMINION, GLASGOW FILM THEATRE, DUNDEE DCA, INVERNESS EDEN COURT, ABERDEEN BELMONT AND CINEWORLD UNION SQUARE, KIRKCALDY ADAM SMITH

PARTICIPATING CINEMAS IN ENGLAND: LONDON CINE LUMIERE, BRISTOL WATERSHED, MANCHESTER CORNERHOUSE, WARWICK ARTS CENTRE.

Notes for Editors: The French Film Festival began in 1992 in a modest way in two Scottish cities, Edinburgh and Glasgow and gradually has grown to encompass many key locations throughout the UK from Dundee and Kirkcaldy to Inverness and Aberdeen as well as London, Bristol, Warwick and Manchester. The festival presents a wide spectrum of French-language cinema from major hits to cutting edge new directors and classics and retrospectives. Originally the FFF was created by two film journalists Richard Mowe and Allan Hunter, the latter now co-director of the burgeoning Glasgow Film Festival. Mowe is now director of the FFF with Ilona Morison as deputy director. The festival’s supporters include Creative Scotland, Institut français, Alliance francaise, the French Embassy, Total, TV5, Regional Screen Scotland, Wallonie-Bruxelles Images; SODEC; The Caledonian (A Waldorf Astoria Hotel), Sofitel, Novotel and many other funders and sponsors. More information can be found via the festival website www.frenchfilmfestival.org.uk or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Thursday 25 October – Friday 2 November

Filmhouse Cinema, Edinburgh

Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT), Glasgow

AiM Sets Sights on Modern Africa

Scotland’s biggest celebration of African cinema today launches its ambitious 2012 programme. Featuring the best in contemporary African film, Africa in Motion (AiM) returns for its 7th consecutive year to Filmhouse Cinema, Edinburgh, and launches this year for the first time at the Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT).

Taking the very timely theme of ‘Modern Africa’, and arriving hot on the heels of Damon Albarn’s Africa Express UK music tour, the festival’s diverse, continent-spanning programme of documentary and fictional films (totalling 20 UK premieres, 23 features and 32 shorts) will explore African urban and rural experiences, identity and popular culture, contemporary politics and social issues, Africa’s rich heritage and its exciting future.

Director of AiM Isabel Moura Mendes says, ‘We are both thrilled and extremely proud of the strong programme of films and events we are bringing to our audiences this year. Our wide and diverse contemporary Africa-focused programme will entertain, inform, surprise and move people. Above all, audiences will be offered the opportunity to engage with the best of African cinema. It will be a true celebration of African creativity and, once again, one not to be missed!’

The festival programme opens on Wednesday 25 October (in Glasgow, Sunday 28 October) with the UK premiere of Uhlanga (The Mark), the story of three teenagers struggling against poverty and prejudice written and directed by celebrated South African author and playwright Ndaba ka Ngwane, who will be in attendance. The programme closes on Friday 2 November (Glasgow, Wednesday 31 October) with Nigerian-born director Andrew Dosunmu’s Restless City, the story of a young African immigrant living and falling in love on the fringes of New York City.

The programme takes in five strands: African Science Fiction, Arab Spring Documentaries, Nollywood (Nigeria’s film industry, the second largest in the world), Modern African Identities and African Popular Arts. AiM 2012 also incorporates the annual Short Film Competition, African Films for Children, a Secondary Schools Screening and an academic Symposium.

The full programme is available at: www.africa-in-motion.org.uk

For further information, interview requests and publicity images, please contact: Miles Fielder

Press Officer; Email: press@africa-in-motion.org.uk; Mobile: 0044 (0)7760 284 177

Notes to Editors

Interview opportunities: AiM Director Isabel Moura Mendes (Edinburgh) and Co-Director Natalia Palombo (Glasgow); festival founder, programme consultant and advisor Lizelle Bisschoff; filmmakers Ndaba ka Ngwane – Uhlanga (The Mark); Jean-Pierre Bekolo – Les Saignantes (The Bloodettes) and Quartier Mozart; Sara Blecher – Otelo Burning; and Nigerian scholar and Nollywood specialist Onookome Okome, will be available in advance and during the festival.

Described as “populist, political and intelligent drama” by Time Out, The Snows of Kilimanjaro has won many prizes including the European Parliament Film Prize in 2011. It was part of the official selection at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Inspired by Victor Hugo’s poem How Good are the Poor, The Snows of Kilimanjaro tells of the relationship between Michel, recently made redundant from the shipyards, and Marie-Claire, his caring wife. Their lives change when their ideals of community and solidarity are challenged by a new generation of workers and social issues.

Cambridge Arts Picture House, 13 September, 20:30 http://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk

London CinéLumière, 14 September, 18:00
www.institut-francais.org.uk/cine-lumiere/

London Prince Charles, 15 September, 20.30
www.londonlabourfilmfest.com

Part narrator and part actor, the Film Explainer stood next to silent movie screens in
Japan, across Asia and parts of Europe enriching the movies with an entertaining
combination of background information, unique interpretation and theatrical
storytelling.  Storyteller Andy Cannon and musicians Wendy Weatherby and Frank
McLaughlin revive this tradition largely forgotten since the silent movie era.  With
cello, guitar, smallpipes and song, the trio’s popular brand of traditional stories and
music accompany films from the Scottish Screen Archive.  The programme includes
Scotland’s first fiction film ‘Mairi: The Romance of a Highland Maiden’, made in 1912
the year the Hippodrome opened, and ‘St Kilda – Britain’s Loneliest Isle’ an elegiac
journey to the remotest part of the British Isles on the eve of the island’s evacuation
in August 1930.

Commissioned for the 2012 Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema, ‘The Lost Art of
the Film Explainer’ was a hit with Festival audiences in March.  The Filmhouse
performance coincides with the National Library of Scotland’s major summer
exhibition ‘Going to the pictures: Scotland at the cinema’ presenting items from the
vast national collections and the Scottish Screen Archive holdings to celebrate
cinema-going in Scotland and how Scots and Scotland have been represented on
film.

Ruth Washbrook, Curator of the National Library’s exhibition and Senior Curator at
the Scottish Screen Archive said: “The Film Explainer is a truly unique experience
bringing together cinema and theatre for a show that will both entertain and delight.
Andy Cannon breathes new life into Scotland’s wonderful archive films providing both
an enlightening and humorous interpretation for a new audience.  Scottish Screen
Archive is delighted to be part of this event which enables a wide range of people to
experience archive film in new and exciting ways.”

Rod White, Head of Filmhouse, added: “Here at Filmhouse we regularly present
silent films with one form of live musical accompaniment or another – from small
orchestras to solo pianists – so were intrigued to discover the Hippodrome Festival of

The students look forward to welcoming you to the exhibition.

Opening times:

Tuesday 1 May: 5.30pm – 9.00pm

Wednesday 2 – Saturday 5 May: 12 noon – 7pm

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Photographers:

Hayley Burnett

Kirsty Langley Cochrane

Katarzyna Branicka

Daniel Gourley

Mathew Hay

Lewis Nicoletti

Eilidh Sutherland

Sophie Turner

Sponsored by a+m imaging

Hope to see you all there.

Showing Fri 20 Apr to Thu 26 Apr

In Mateo Gil’s intimate and adventurous Western, a reimagined and aged Butch Cassidy (Sam Shepard) is living under the assumed name, James Blackthorn, in a secluded Bolivian village, 20 years after his disappearance (and supposed death) in 1908. Surviving humbly off the land and finding occasional comforts with a local woman, he longs to end his personal exile and return to the US to see his family. Reluctantly joining forces with a Spanish robber (Eduardo Noriega) who promises him a cut of the loot, Blackthorn sets out on one final adventure… and discovers he’s not the only one harbouring a deep secret.

These special screenings announcing the launch of the second edition of MyFrenchFilmFestival.com (12 Jan – 1 Feb), uniFrance’s online festival.