Keep an eye out for all these made-in-Scotland shows and films over the next 12 months.
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The Incomer
Broadway and Hollywood star Gayle Rankin, who will be returning to the stage in her native Scotland to lead the cast of a new production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, also has one of the key roles in a major Scottish comedy film.
She will be starring alongside Outlander favourite Grant O’Rorke as Isla and Sandy, a quicky couple who have lived happily on a remote Scottish island for decades, where they hunt seabirds, talk to mythical creatures and defend their home from “incomers”.
Irish stage and screen star Domhnall Gleeson will play Daniel, the awkward council worker sent from the mainland to uproot the couple, but who gradually finds himself bonding with them.
Everybody to Kenmure Street
The Glasgow-based Chilean-Belgian filmmaker Felipe Bustos Sierra has already made a huge impact in Scotland with his documentary Nae Pasaran, which explored the true story of the group of workers at a Rolls Royce factory in East Kilbride who refused to carry out repairs on Chilean Air Force warplane engines in protest at Augusto Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship dictatorship.
Now he has turned his focus onto the spontaneous act of civil resistance in Kenmure Street in Glasgow which successfully blocked a Home Office deportation operation.
Everybody to Kenmure Street will recall how hundreds of protesters surrounded the Home Office’s immigration enforcement van after two Sikh men were detained. They were eventually released by the request of Police Scotland officers.
Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson, who is an executive producer on the documentary, said the film” beautifully and powerfully demonstrates the innate and deep decency of our people, whilst also highlighting the institutional mannerisms and structures that are the opposite of this”.
Half Man
Actor and writer Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd’s eagerly-awaited follow-up series will see him star opposite Jamie Bell in a six-part series spanning almost 40 years, from the 1980s to the present day.
Gadd and Bell will play Ruben and Niall, who are reunited after years of estrangement when Gadd’s character shows up unexpectedly at Niall’s wedding and an explosion of violence erupts.
Mitchell Robertson and Stuart Campbell will play the younger versions of Niall and Ruben in the show, which will explore the highs and lows of their relationship, from their first meeting as teenagers to their falling-out as adults.
Newcomers Charlotte Blackwood and Calum Manchip have also been cast in Half Man, along with Neve McIntosh, Marianne McIvor, Charlie De Melo, Bilal Hasna, Julie Cullen, Amy Manson, Philippine Velge, Stuart McQuarrie, Piers Ewart and Scot Greenan.
Mint
Hip hop musician Loyle Carner and 28 Years Later star Emma Laird lead the cast of Mind, an eight-part series exploring the inner life of a family crime clan.
Laird plays the central character Shannon – the “naïve and hopelessly romantic” daughter of gangster Dylan, played by Sam Riley, and Cat, played by Laure Fraser – and follows the events which unfold when Carner’s character Arran comes into her life.
Created, written and directed by Charlotte Regan, Mint was filmed on location in Grangemouth and North Glasgow earlier this year.
Lewis Gribben and Lindsay Duncan also feature in the drama, which is said to explore “what love might feel like when everyone outside of your family is terrified of you”.
Counsels
Thirty years after the launch of the hit BBC series This Life, which was set in London, a new batch of law graduates will be the focus of a brand new show, which will play out across Glasgow’s legal landscape.
Created by Bryan Elsley and Gillian McCormack, legal drama Counsels see a group of twentysomething lawyers jostling for promotion, becoming embroiled in relationships facing off against each other in the city’s courtrooms and becoming adversaries.
Rising stars Brandon Grace, Ro Kumar, Eilidh Park, George Prentice, Alyth Ross and Rebecca Bell have been cast in the lead roles.
Intriguingly, This Life star Daniela Nardini will be in the wider ensemble, along with Michelle Gomez, Derek Riddell, Laura Haddock, Michael Nardone, Sally Howitt, Stuart Bowman, Nesha Caplan and Stephen Purdon.
California Schemin’
Scottish Screen star James McAvoy’s directorial debut, which will close the Glasgow Film Festival in March, will recall the extraordinary true story of the Dundonian rappers who duped the music industry by pretending to be an American hip hop duo.
Samuel Bottomley and Seamus McLean Ross play Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain, the pair who reinvented themselves as “Silibil” and “Brains,” a double act who supposedly met at a rap battle in California, after being told they had the wrong accepts.
Boyd and Bain, who were mocked as “the rapping Proclaimers,” were snapped up by a leading industry manager, landed a record deal with Sony, toured with Eminem and appeared on MTV.
The film, which was shot extensively on location in Dundee and Glasgow, will recall how they went to great lengths to keep up their hoax before it all went badly wrong for them.
Glenrothan
Scottish stage and screen legend Brian Cox goes behind the camera for the first time for a feature film which sees him and Alan Cumming play long-estranged brothers reunited after 35 years apart.
Cumming’s character Donald returns from the United States to his family’s whisky distillery in the Highlands try to make amends with brother Sandy, played by Cox.
Shirley Henderson and Alexandra Shipp also star in Glenrothan, which is billed as a “tense drama about family and forgiveness.”
Premiered at the Toronro International Film Festival in September, Cox’s feature was filmed in locations in Gartmore and Kippen, in Stirling.
The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford
Peter Mullan is the star of a new dark comedy which sees him play an eccentric tour guide in Scottish town which finds itself thrust into the limelight when it is featured in a big-budget fantasy TV show.
His character, who dresses up as an 18th century philosopher and inventor, finds his sanity crumbling as growing number of visitors descend on the town, bringing into into conflict with the show’s star, played by Jakob Oftebro.
Gayle Rankin, the Scottish star of Broadway and Hollywood, will play Mullan’s daughter, Anna, who attributes his father’s mental decline to the loss of his wife.
The Dark
Outlander and The Nevers star Laura Donnelly will be leading the cast of the first adaption from GR Halliday’s detective series set in the Highlands.
Donnelly will play Detective Inspector Monica Kennedy in The Dark, a six-part thriller which unfolds after the body of a young man is found in the wilderness.
With paranoia, suspicious and secrets swirling around the local community, the realisation grows that there is a serial killer at large, as DI Kennedy becomes engaged in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse.
Maya
Bella Ramsey, star of The Worst Witch, Game of Thrones and The Last of Us will be starring opposite writer and actor Daisy Haggard in a new Channel Four mother and daughter drama.
Haggard, whose previous writing credits include Back to Life, has created the psychological thriller Maya, which is said to be “shot through” with her trademark humour.
Ramsey and Haggard will play Maya and Anna who leave London behind for a new life in a rural town in Scotland after being force into a witness protection programme, only to find themselves being pursued by two hitmen.
The show is billed as a both an exploration of “predatory male behaviour” as well as a “warm and witty celebration of the special, unbreakable bond shared between mother and daughter.”
The Odyssey
Action fantasy The Odyssey, which is based on the ancient Greek poem, features a star-studded cast including Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson and Charlize Theron.
The film, which will follow Odysseus on his journey home from the Trojan War, was shot earlier this year across multiple locations, including Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland and Scotland.
Sites visited by the cast and crew across Morayshire including Burghead, Buckie and Findlater Castle.
