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Writer and director Andrea Arnold returns with coming of age drama Bird, and here’s the trailer for her new movie.

Over the course of the last two decades, writer and director Andrea Arnold has built up a terrific filmography.

She began her career with three short films, Milk, Dog and Wasp. Her 2006 feature directorial debut, the chilling psychological drama Red Road, about a CCTV operator in Glasgow who becomes obsessed with a man from her past, is a great example of how a low budget is no hinderance when you have a brilliant script. The film was the first in a planned trilogy called Advance Party, in which three directors use the same characters to tell different stories.

The next film, Donkeys, directed by Morag McKinnon, was released in 2010. Sadly, the third film, Copenhagen, which would have been directed by Mikkel Nørgaard, was stuck in development and never made.

Documentaries from Latin America were the big winners at this year’s Visions du Réel (April 25-May 3) in Switzerland’s Nyon.

The Sesterce d’Or for best feature length film in the international competition was awarded to Mexican filmmaker Hatuey Viveros Lavielle’s n, which also received a special mention from the interreligious jury.

The international jury of UK producer Simon Field, German director Nicolas Humbert and French philosopher Marie-José Mondzain said that it appreciated the “patient perspective” of “this extremely sensitive film [which] explores the relation between emancipation and tradition, proximity and separation at the heart of an indigenous family.”

Paraguay’s Arami Ullón received the Sesterce d’Argent prize in the Regard Neufs competition and a special mention from the C-Side Prize jury for his debut El Tiempo Nublado.

The Chilean Mafi collective picked up the George Foundation Jury award for the most innovative medium-length film for Propaganda, about the presidential election campaign of autumn 2013, while...

Festival favourite For Those In Peril was named Best Film at last night's Scottish BAFTA award ceremony, beating off competition from The Wee Man, which took the Audience Award, and Fire in The Night, about the Piper Alpha disaster, which took Best Documentary. The awards were handed out at a ceremony in Glasgow which saw stars like Brian Cox and Peter Mullan on the red carpet.

"For a first-time director to win an award like this is a phenomenal achievement," said BAFTA Scotland's Alan de Pellette.

Best Director went to Emma Davie and Morag McKinnon for I Am Breathing, a documentary about a man with motor neurone disease, and Best Actor was won by For Those In Peril star George MacKay.

Visual effects supervisor Steven Begg received a special award for his lifetime achievements and for his contribution to recent James Bond films including Skyfall....

For Those in Peril and Screen Star of Tomorrow George Mackay picked up top awards.Scroll down for full list of winners

Paul Wright’s For Those In Peril, about a young man in a Scottish fishing village reeling after a tragic accident, did the double at the BAFTA Scotland Awards 2013 last night.

At a ceremony in Glasgow, honouring both Scottish productions as well as Scottish talent working in other UK productions, lead actor George Mackay picked up the coveted best actor/actress in film award.

The film, which was selected for Cannes Critics’ Week, also won best film beating competition from documentary Fire in the Night and ganger feature The Wee Man.

However, both runners-up picked up separate awards with Fire In the Night winning best single documentary and The Wee Man picking up the BAFTA Scotland Cineworld Audience Award, voted for by the public.

Emma Davie and Morag Mckinnon both collected the best director award for...

For Those in Peril and Screen Star of Tomorrow George Mackay picked up top awards.Scroll down for full list of winners

Paul Wright’s For Those In Peril, about a young man in a Scottish fishing village reeling after a tragic accident, did the double at the BAFTA Scotland Awards 2013 last night.

At a ceremony in Glasgow, honouring both Scottish productions as well as Scottish talent working in other UK productions, lead actor George Mackay picked up the coveted best actor/actress in film award.

The film, which was selected for Cannes Critics’ Week, also won best film beating competition from documentary Fire in the Night and ganger feature The Wee Man.

However, both runners-up picked up separate awards with Fire In the Night winning best single documentary and The Wee Man picking up the BAFTA Scotland Cineworld Audience Award, voted for by the public.

Emma Davie and Morag Mckinnon both collected the best director award for...

Other film nominees include The Wee Man and Fire In The Night.Scroll down for full list of nominees

Paul Wright’s For Those In Peril, about a young man in a Scottish fishing village reeling after a tragic accident, leads the film nominees for the BAFTA Scotland Awards 2013.

The film, which was selected for Cannes Critics’ Week, has four nominations: best actor (George MacKay), writer (Wright), director (Wright) and best film.

Documentaries Fire In The Night and I Am Breathing each got two nominations, as did feature film The Wee Man.

The awards will be held in Glasgow on Nov 17. They honour both Scottish productions as well as Scottish talent working in other UK productions.

Full list of nominees

Film Actor/Actress

Iain De Caestecker Not Another Happy Ending

Martin Compston The Wee Man

George MacKay For Those in Peril

TV Actor/Actress

Ford Kiernan The Field of Blood: The Dead Hour

Peter Mullan [link...

Other film nominees include The Wee Man and Fire In The Night.

Paul Wright’s For Those In Peril, about a young man in a Scottish fishing village reeling after a tragic accident, leads the film nominees for the BAFTA Scotland Awards 2013.

The film, which was selected for Cannes Critics’ Week, has four nominations: best actor (George MacKay), writer (Wright), director (Wright) and best film.

Documentaries Fire In The Night and I Am Breathing each got two nominations, as did feature film The Wee Man.

The awards will be held in Glasgow on Nov 17. They honour both Scottish productions as well as Scottish talent working in other UK productions.

The nominees are:

Film Actor/Actress

Iain De Caestecker Not Another Happy Ending

Martin Compston The Wee Man

George MacKay For Those in Peril

TV Actor/Actress

Ford Kiernan The Field of Blood: The Dead Hour

Peter Mullan The Fear

Sharon Rooney My Mad Fat Diary

Animation...

The terminally ill Neil Platt, certain that Motor Neuron Disease will kill him within the year, is determined to preserve something of himself for his toddling son Oscar. He records a daily blog of his thoughts, encourages his family to videotape him, and exploits every possible method he can think of in order to ensure that his personality will be transmitted from beyond the grave. I Am Breathing is a synthesis of these efforts, and its unevenness is an example of why the reality of death confounds any attempt to present it in a straightforward manner. Emma Davie and Morag McKinnon's documentary doesn't have any artistic pretensions of explicating the 'grand theme' of the death of the father. The subtext is there, but the style...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Actor Josh Gad recently called the Ashton Kutcher-starring Steve Jobs biopic “inspirational,” and why wouldn’t he? There is no doubt Steve Jobs the man continues to inspire, but that word—“inspirational”—is thrown around by actors, filmmakers, and even critics with reckless abandon. (My favorite came from a review of “Kick-Ass 2” that seriously stated: “[A] a sequel … that is both emotionally engaging and ambitiously inspirational.”) Calling “Jobs”—and “Argo,” “The King’s Speech,” and most other pleasant bits of Oscar bait, for that matter—“inspirational” is an insult to “I Am Breathing,” a stunning, profoundly moving Scottish documentary by filmmakers Emma Davie and Morag McKinnon. It is the story of Neil Platt, a 34-year-old father in the U.K. diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease (M.N.D.), also known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (A.L.S.) or Lou Gehrig's Disease. It is no spoiler to say that we...

★★★☆☆ A documentary every bit as humorous and uplifting as it is tragic and melancholic, Emma Davie and Morag McKinnon's I Am Breathing (2013) - which screens at this year's Edinburgh Film Festival ahead of a limited theatrical release - follows the final few months and weeks in the life of 34-year-old Neil Platt, who succumbed to Motor Neurone Disease in 2009. An undoubted 'glass is half-full' sort of guy, Platt busies himself with a popular online blog and compiling a keep-sake for his infant son Oscar, whilst he and his wife are inevitably forced to face up to the reality of Neil's impending death at the hands of his affliction.

Witty, erudite and contemplative, Platt comes across as an extremely affable individual, pouring his last ounces of energy into raising public awareness of his debilitating condition. Blending captured footage of Platt with nostalgic home videos from his past, Davie and McKinnon...

World War Z | Before Midnight | Spike Island | Fire In The Night | Like Someone In Love | Snitch | I Am Nasrine | The Seasoning House | Shun Li and The Poet | Black Rock | I Am Breathing | A Haunted House

World War Z (15)

(Marc Forster, 2013, Us/Mal) Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale. 116 mins

In the end, the much-reported delays, reshoots and overspend have at least resulted in a watchable disaster epic, even if this brings little to the zombie apocalypse party save for a huge guest list. Forster's film finds Pitt pitted against insect-like hordes of the sprinting dead, as his Un agent trots round the globe trying to trace the source of the epidemic, save his family and avoid getting chomped. Mild spoiler alert: blame Wales.

Before Midnight (15)

(Richard Linklater, 2013, Us) Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Walter Lassally. 109 mins

A satisfying return for the comfortable screen couple, now together but burdened by history,...

I Am Breathing will screen on June 20 as part of the 2013 Edinburgh International Film Festival, kicking off a Global Screening Day on June 21 to raise awareness of Motor Neurone Disease.

The Scottish Documentary Institute and the Motor Neurone Disease Association will collaborate to promote awareness and raise funds with cinema and community screenings of the film all over the world on 21st June 2013. Participating so far are the Balkans, Australia, USA, Finland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Russia and New Zealand.

I Am Breathing is the hard-hitting story of Neil Platt – a 33-year-old Yorkshireman who contracted Motor Neurone’s Disease. Paralysed from the neck down with only months to live, he tells his story to help raise awareness around his devastating disease and dedicates the film to his one-year-old son Oscar. Collaborating with filmmakers Emma Davie and Morag McKinnon, he used his remaining months to communicate about his...

Big success for Donkeys.

Morag McKinnon's grim comedy Donleys has scooped the top prize at this year's Scottish BAFTAs, as well as picking up a Best Actor gong for star James Cosmo. Peter Mullen won Best Director and Best Writer for Neds, but the favourites were pipped at the post when it came to the Audience Award, which, in a surprise turn of events, went to Carter Ferguson's indie debut Fast Romance.

I Love Luci took Best Short Film, while the award for Best Documentary went to Terry Pratchett: Choosing To Die, already highly acclaimed at festivals. Robbie Coltrane...

Since her Bafta-winning Red Road performance, Kate Dickie has cornered the market in troubled women. She tells Jane Graham about why she's finally in a good place

Kate Dickie comes bounding in, cheeks glowing and nose tip pink, shaking the first snow of Glasgow's winter from her shoulders and apologising for her lateness. "I had to run here on this slidey snow," she says. "I was on my arse most of the way." A peal of raucous laughter echoes around the cafe she's showering with a flurry of melting flakes.

It might be a surprise that Dickie turns out to be an unguarded and animated conversationalist, and rather intoxicating company. But since her performance as Jackie, the still, stony CCTV operator mourning the death of her daughter in Red Road (the Andrea Arnold film for which Dickie won a Scottish Bafta in 2006), she has carved out a series of serious roles,...

Death, dishonour and bad weather all conspired to derail low-budget Scottish comedy Donkeys, but it made it back from development hell against all the odds, writes Jane Graham

It's hard to know where to begin. The series of unfortunate events that has dogged the low-budget Scottish indie film Donkeys – last minute recasting, a troubled shoot, conflict within the production team – now appears to have a happy ending, and this jet-black comedy about an old man coming to terms with his impending death is shaping up as Scotland's underground hit of the year.

Not much about Donkeys' return from the brink makes sense. The film began life as the middle section of a film trilogy called Advance Party, dreamed up by Scotland's Sigma Films and their partners, Lars von Trier's Zentropa Films. You may have heard of Red Road, the first part, directed by Andrea Arnold. The trilogy was...

Day 10 – Friday

Friday has to be one of my favourite days at Eiff.

It began with Superhero Me at the Cameo – a.k.a. the comfiest cinema in the universe. Enveloped in its cozy red seats, we were swept away on a magical journey of cheap spandex, a novice superhero named Sos, and a network of eccentrics. Superhero Me is a documentary from Steve Sale, a first-time filmmaker who wondered – “Long before Kick-Ass!” - what it would be like to become a superhero.

Quickly taking action, he shot his forays into real life comic book filmmaking on home video equipment, camera phones, and whatever else he could get his hands on. It’s an enjoyable romp, with a poignant message to be found in later scenes with an Orlando-based superhero named Master Legend. Unfortunately it was ill-projected, so we missed the subtitles while he spoke with an Italian vigilante and some other details.

Two highly-anticipated second feature films from U.S. underground filmmakers will be making their World Premieres all the way over at the 64th annual Edinburgh International Film Festival, which will run for twelve days on June 16-27. The films are Rona Mark’s The Crab and Zach Clark’s Vacation!.

The Crab, which screens on June 21, is the touching story of a verbally abusive man born with two enormous, mutant-like hands; while Vacation!, which screens on June 20, tracks four urban gals let loose in a sunny seaside resort down South.

Both Mark and Clark previously screened their debut features at Eiff. Mark’s Strange Girls screened there in 2008 and Clark’s Modern Love Is Automatic screened in 2009. Both films also ended up as runners-up in Bad Lit’s annual Movie of the Year award, again Strange Girls in 2008 and Modern Love in 2009. Sadly, these two masterpieces are still unavailable on...

New films from Werner Herzog and Steven Soderbergh will screen at the 64th Edinburgh International Film Festival. This year's program includes 133 features from 34 countries.

Sylvain Chomet’s “The Illusionist” will open the festival at the June 16 gala, while the world premiere of “Third Star,” from first-time British director Hattie Dalton, will close the festivities on June 26.

Herzog’s “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done” (produced by David Lynch) and Soderbergh’s documentary “And Everything is Going Fine” are among the marquee titles on the Edinburgh docket. Morag McKinnon’s “Donkeys,” the second of the Scottish-Danish Advance Party features, receives a World Premiere in a strong British field that also features Paul Andrew William’s thriller “Cherry Tree Lane,” Ben Miller’s comedy about comedians “Huge” and Bernard Rose’s Howard Marks biopic “Mr. Nice.”

The festival runs June 16-27.

Irish production company Subotica Entertainment is forming a production partnership with Scotland's Sigma Films and Denmark's Zentropa entitled Advance Party II launched at the Berlin Film Festival with the aim of developing eight new films from UK and Irish filmmakers. Advance Party II (Apii) follows on from the initial Advance Party I which was behind Andrea Arnold's 'Red Road', and Morag McKinnon's forthcoming 'Donkeys' and is backed by the Irish Film Board, Scottish Screen, Zentropa and the UK Film Council's Development Fund. A new set of rules has been established for the structure of Apii which will reflect the creative challenges of Advance Party I but aims to incorporate the filmmakers' tastes and needs.