Inverness Film Festival programmer Paul MacDonald Taylor introduces this year’s event.

Mads Mikkelsen in Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg, 2020)

When we closed the Inverness Film Festival last November with Jojo Rabbit, after a day of Hugh Grant rom-coms, I certainly didn’t think that the lead up to this year’s festival would have been what is was. It’s been a difficult and uncertain year for us, with Eden Court closed since March and this year’s Inverness Film Festival uncertain for a long time. But even with many months of this still to come, hopefully being back in the cinema will, in a small way, help us all get back to normal.

This year’s festival is smaller than normal for obvious reasons, and we can only sell around 25% of our normal seating capacity. Yet we have a great line up of films for you to come and watch while easing yourself back into the cinema going experience. We have spent a lot of time making sure that watching a film at Eden Court will be a safe and enjoyable experience, so you can feel comfortable and relaxed.

Our Ladies (Michael Caton-Jones, 2020) 

We open our festival with one of my favourite films of the past couple of years, Our Ladies. Based on Alan Warner’s novel ‘The Sopranos’, you may have seen the National Theatre of Scotland production ‘Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour’ when it toured to Eden Court. Our Ladies is one of the most joyous, uplifting and warm films I’ve ever experienced.

Frances McDormand in Nomadland (Chloé Zhao, 2020)

The closing film is Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand as a woman who has lost everything and is travelling around the country in her van as a modern nomad. We closed the 2017 film festival with another Frances McDormand film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, for which she won the Best Actress Oscar. There is talk of her repeating that again next year in her performance here, which has been getting rave reviews.

In between those two films we have Tilda Swinton, Pedro Almodóvar, Colin Firth, Stanley Tucci, Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Vinterberg, Zacharias Kunuk, Roy Andersson, Barbara Sukowa and Isabelle Huppert.

Welcome back to Eden Court cinema!

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