This is perhaps one of the more unconventional ways to follow up an Oscar win, but fresh from her Best Supporting Actress triumph this spring for Michael Clayton, actress Tilda Swinton has unveiled plans for an August film festival in the small town of Nairn, Scotland. Called the Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams (Ballerina Ballroom being the name of the rented facility where the celebration is to take place), the event is scheduled – in honor of Frederico Fellini’s 8 ½ – to run for eight and a half days from August 15th through the 23rd.
Swinton’s partner in this endeavor is Mark Cousins, former director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. “This festival grows out of a passion that Tilda and I have for trying to get as imaginative films as possible to young people,” he explains (he and Swinton also once worked together on a short about the wonders of cinema as seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old). “We see our wee festival as a work of the Scottish romantic imagination, in the spirit of Landseer, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Archers and Michael Clark. We are playing with the boundaries between seriousness and play, adult and child, professional and grungy, local and international.”
But perhaps the most unusual aspect of this nascent event, other than the fact that seating is to consist of bean bags, is the alternative form of payment that will be accepted as admission. If patrons so choose, they can cough up a platter of “tray cakes” rather than the sum of three pounds. The locale is an old bingo hall, which will be gussied up in a Las Vegas theme.
According to the Sunday Herald newspaper, Joel Coen, a frequent visitor to Scotland and animmediate fan of Swinton’s non-stuffy film festival concept, will be programming the two Friday nights of the event. Swinton co-stars in the Coen brothers’ new film Burn After Reading.
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