EIFF 2007 Opening & Pocket Shorts

The press were out in force at Cineworld Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Film Festival opener Hallam Foe last night. There were a total of five screenings of Hallam Foe. For star Jamie Bell, director David Mackenzie, producer Gillian Berrie and new Film Festival artistic director Hannah McGill that was five introductions before each screening.

I went to the introduction at the first screening - cast and crew, supporters and funders, friends and family, packed the audience. There were thanks beforehand. Producer Gillian Berrie, wearing a stylish fishtail dress, pointed out that the film was made with a relatively small budget of £3 million (although she acknowledged still a pretty sum) and a lot of passionate energy and support from the Scottish film community.

Jamie Bell, who plays the eponymous anti-hero, said that the film was one that he was proudest of and then apologised in advance to his mum, who was supposed to be in the audience, for the sex scenes in the film.

I slipped out after the intros to the screening to the Pocket Shorts film party just down the road at Cargo, by the Union Canal. As the name suggests Pocket Shorts is a scheme to develop film and multimedia creation for mobile phones.

Around 30 pieces of individual Scottish pocket-shorts - live action, animation, and interactive games - have been funded by the scheme which is run by Scottish Enterprise, Nesta, and Scottish Screen. Eight projects are funded up to £3,000 each year. People were carrying around phones which you could watch the shorts on - an interactive game, a guess-this-text game, and a spoof news bulletin from free comedy rag Shaver's Weekly's Murray McKean.

Video on phones is still in its infancy - we're at the level where video on the web was almost 10 years ago - but the idea is to get creative people thinking about the evolution of content to mobiles now.

I confess free beer and food was the initial attraction, but after a wee chat with an enthusiastic Jason Hall, who heads up the scheme, I left with the intention of applying to it. You can find out more about Pocket Shorts at the web site.

Hallam Foe party

While upstairs Pocket Shorts were being Bluetoothed between handsets, downstairs at Cargo EIFF artistic director Hannah McGill was quietly entertaining a small coterie of team Hallam Foe - David Mackenzie, Jamie Bell, and Gillian Berrie again. They were getting a quick bite in before going back to Cineworld to introduce the next two screenings.

As we stood around chatting, and some of us puffing, outside by the long boats on the Union Canal, it seemed like we were a long way from the adrenaline-inducing excitement of the opening night. The patio area was deserted because of the intermittent rain. Dave pointed out that literally around the corner from where we were standing was the spot where he shot his canal scenes for Young Adam (which opened the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2003). For a moment, the Union Canal provided a link between the Edinburgh Film Festival opener in 2003 with the Edinburgh Film Festival 2007.

I never usually arrive early to parties, but, being stuck in the gap between events, meant today I was among the first, if not the first, at the Edinburgh College of Arts. Over a thousand more guests would follow. The event was suitably lavish with huge bars, and the walls decked out with the cute, pastoral illustrations from the credit sequence. Echoing scenes from Hallam Foe, waiters wore faux badger skins on their heads and went bare-chested with lipstick around their nipples. Cocktails flowed. Beer flowed. People flowed.

The buzz was all about Franz Ferdinand playing at the party. Alex Kapranos (vocals, guitar) and Nick McCarthy (keyboards, guitar), jokingly introduced by Dave as the "least glamorous two members," didn't disappoint. Kapranos said he'd never written a song for a movie before, but when Jamie Bell met him on a plane and sugggested that he write a song for Hallam Foe they took to the idea. (Hallam Foe) Dandelion Blow, a lilting, whimsical piece, became the theme track. In the end, the guys from Franz played not one, but several songs, to the delight of the party-goers packed into the auditorium and leaning over the balcony to listen.

It was a fantastic party, with many old friends and familiar faces from Edinburgh's arts scene, but by midnight I was beginning to feel the effects of all the late nights. So I did the sensible thing: home to crash.