An Edinburgh-set film premiering at the London Film Festival this month pits characters at either end of the city's social spectrum against each other in a deadly thriller. New Town Killers, which screens at the Leicester Square Odeon on 28 and 30 October and later this month at the Aberfeldy Film Festival, stars Dougray Scott and Alistair Mackenzie as two wealthy hedge fund managers in Edinburgh who get their kicks by hunting people down across the city.
Sixteen-year-old Sean Macdonald (James Anthony Pearson), who lives on one of Edinburgh's rough housing estates, accepts cash from the high-rollers to play their game of hide and seek over the course of a night. He is desperate to pay off his and his sister's mounting debts. However, when he realises that he may not survive til the morning, he begins to turn the tables on his would-be assassins.
New Town Killers is directed by Fife-born Richard Jobson, former frontsman for 1970s punk group The Skids. Jobson made his warmly received directorial debut at the
Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2003 with Edinburgh-set 16
Years Of Alcohol. The semi-autobiographical story also had a violent edge to it with its story about a local gang
leader played by Trainspotting star Kevin McKidd.
Jobson, who lives and works in a 17th century farmhouse in Bedfordshire, says New Town Killers was inspired by the work he had been doing with charity Circle which provides support to people from the outlying housing estates of Edinburgh.
His work brought a realisation that although the men and women he
was working with were smart "they felt that life had passed them by and
to many they were seen as nothing more than second generation children
of junkies or alcoholics, and that people looked past them rather than
saw who they really were or could be." In the film, the teenager's lowly social status means that he "would not be missed if he disappeared."
Jobson says that he has borrowed themes from the Edinburgh gothic tradition (think Burke and Hare, Jekyll and Hyde) and put them in a modern setting.
The 90-minute film was an opportunity, says Jobson's web site, "to mix visceral fast paced action with a genuine story that had something to say about the chaotic, dangerous, mad and nihilistic world that surrounds us."
New Town Killers, reportedly shot for £1 million, uses locations extensively around Edinburgh from affluent new town locations such as Heriot Row in the New Town, as well as West Register Street, Regent Road, Muirhouse, the Innocent Railway tunnel, and Leith.