Scotland on Screen: Begg x Co Film Club

Scotland On Screen: Begg x Co Film Club

To celebrate our AW20 collection, which was filmed on location in Glasgow and featured local icons such as the GFT – Scotland’s first independent arthouse cinema – we’re sharing five of our favourite indie Scottish films with you. From Bill Forsyth’s coming-of-age comedy Gregory’s Girl to Lynne Ramsay’s haunting debut Ratcatcher, all of these films feature Scotland in a memorable supporting role.

Trainspotting (1996)

With its cult following, it’s no surprise that Trainspotting was voted the best Scottish film of all time by public poll in 2004. ‘This films does not glorify drugs it glorifies film’, said Empire in their review. Based on Irvine Welsh’s debut novel about a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh, Trainspotting is a wickedly good dark comedy. The film launched the careers of its director, Danny Boyle, and lead actor, Ewan McGregor, who had already made another great Scottish film together, Shallow Grave. It also marked the screen debut of a 19 year-old Kelly Macdonald. Nominated for an Academy Award, Trainspotting was ranked tenth by the British Film Institute in its list of Top 100 British films of the 20th century and polled at the same position in Time Out when the magazine asked 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics to name their best British film ever.

Gregory’s Girl (1981)

A charmingly quirky romantic comedy with a big heart, Gregory’s Girl remains not another teen movie almost 30 years after its release. As critic Richard Skorman wrote in his book Off-Hollywood Movies: ‘Unlike the film's American counterparts, Gregory's Girl is refreshingly free of mean-spirited characters and horny young studs bemoaning their virginity’. Bill Forsyth’s beloved film follows Cumbernauld schoolboy Gregory as he attempts to woo the new girl on his school football team with a little help from his friends. After casting, the actress that portrayed Gregory’s love interest, Dee Hepburn, was given six weeks of intensive football training at Partick Thistle F.C. and a clip from the film featuring her was included in the opening ceremony at the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Nominated for four BAFTA’s, Bill Forsyth won the Award for Best Original Screenplay for Gregory’s Girl in 1982.

Ratcatcher (1999)

Best seen on the big screen, Glaswegian director Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher is a stunning, self-assured debut exploring themes of hope, guilt, loneliness and perseverance. Set during a time of transition in Glasgow’s housing estates of the 1970s, Ratcatcher tells the story of James, a young boy mourning the accidental death of his friend, seeking solace and kinship in the most unlikely of places. Trained as a photographer, Ramsay’s cinematography is utterly beautiful and has an almost dreamlike quality to it, with a hint of magical realism struggling to break through the garbage and grime that cloaks James’ Glasgow in the film. A visceral, raw work of art, Ratcatcher won Ramsay a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.

Sweet Sixteen (2002)

Nominated for the Palme d'Or and winner of the Best Screenplay Award at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, the socialist-realist drama Sweet Sixteen was critically acclaimed but criminally made very little at the box office. Directed by Ken Loach, this wee gem of a film is worth seeking out for Scottish actor Martin Compston’s faultless performance alone. The Line of Duty star had never acted before but appears an utter natural in front of the camera as cocksure yet naïve teenager Liam, who steals his stepfather’s heroin so that he can make enough money to buy his incarcerated mum a caravan. Shot in the grey estates of Greenock, Port Glasgow and on the Gourock coast, Sweet Sixteen is often bleak but it still has its moments of hope. As The Guardian noted in their 2002 review: ‘The aftertaste of this film has sweetness in spite of everything.’

Orphans (1998)

Written and directed by the prolific Scottish actor Peter Mullan, Orphans is his first feature film – a dark comedy set in Glasgow about grieving that manages to be both melancholy and outrageously funny. Starring Douglas Henshall and Gary Lewis, the film follows three brothers and their sister on the day before their mother’s funeral as they grapple to come to terms with her death and each other. While he denies that the film is autobiographical, Mullan wrote the film following the death of his own mother and says the siblings each represent a different stage of grief that he experienced at that time. Orphans premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 1998, where it won four awards, and went on to win the Grand Prix at the 1999 Festival du Film de Paris and Best Newcomer at the 2000 Evening Standard British Film Awards.