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Exclusive: James McAvoy’s upcoming directorial debut California Schemin’ has pre-sold to a raft of international buyers, including Studiocanal for the UK and Ireland.

Filming is being lined up for the end of October in Scotland.

Bankside has also inked deals with Estonian Theatrical Distribution (Baltics), Beta (Bulgaria), HBO (Eastern Europe), McF (Former Yugoslavia), Cinetel (Hungary), Efar Films Distribution (India), Front Row (Middle East), Nos Lusomundo (Portugal) and Green Light (Ukraine).

Currently in pre-production, the film will chart the true story of two Scottish lads from Dundee who conned the international music industry by adopting American accents and pretending to be established Californian rap duo, Silibil N’ Brains.

Pic is based on Gavin Bain’s autobiography of the same name, which was later re-printed as Straight Outta Scotland. The story was later adapted into 2013 SXSW documentary The Great Hip Hop Hoax.

BAFTA and Golden Globe nominee McAvoy will direct and have a supporting role,...

“Fake it till you make it,” or so the saying goes. Well, back in the late ‘90s, that’s exactly what Scottish pals Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd did, reinventing themselves as Californian rappers Silibil N' Brains before rocking up in London and taking the music industry by storm. It sounds like something out of a movie right? Well, :a[X-Men]{href='https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/x-men-first-class-review/' target='_blank' rel='noreferrer noopener'} and :a[Split]{href='https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/split-review/' target='_blank' rel='noreferrer noopener'} star James McAvoy certainly thinks so. Per :a[Deadline]{href='https://deadline.com/2023/10/james-mcavoy-directorial-debut-movie-film-scottish-rap-duo-california-1235577878/' target='_blank' rel='noreferrer noopener'}’s reporting, the Scottish actor is set to make his directorial debut with a biopic about the fearless fraudsters, who had the world fooled – until they didn’t.

Talking to Deadline about the project, McAvoy expressed his excitement for the film,...

Author: Zehra Phelan

Rob Brydon has squeezed into those budgie smugglers he has tucked at the back of his drawers to start filming on the upcoming British comedy Swimming with Men alongside a pretty decent cast which includes Charlotte Riley ad Daniel Mays.

The production which is underway today in pools across London, Hertfordshire and Essex, is said to be a heart-warming comedy about a man in the throes of a mid-life crisis who finds meaning in the most unlikely of places: an all-male, middle-aged, amateur synchronised swimming team.

At the heart of the story is Eric, a 40-something stuck in a rut. With his marriage in tatters and his life generally going to pieces, Eric finds unexpected refuge in the company of a motley crew of middle-aged, slightly saggy men, who meet up once a week at the local municipal pool literally and figuratively to tread water together.

Eric...

Speakers to discuss emerging cinema trends at conference in Manchester, UK.

Film exhibition innovation conference This Way Up (Dec 2-3) is to return for a second year at a new venue, the Home cinema in Manchester, and has unveiled its programme of events and speakers.

The two-day event will include workshops, labs, panel discussions and keynotes, exploring emerging trends, models and ideas currently impacting the sector.

Keynotes will be presented by Anna Higgs, former head of Film4.0 and executive producer of High-Rise, The Duke of Burgundy, A Field in England; BBC director of audiences Nick North; and National Theatre of Scotland producer Marianne Maxwell.

Topics under discussion will include the rise of event cinema and alternative content; generating audience loyalty through different pricing models; embracing user-generated video; if the power of the film critic is dwindling; and the use of data in exhibition.

Other topics will explore if documentary is being sidelined by theatres; the use of...

Exclusive: Sundance Selects plans Dec 4 release theatrically and on demand.

Sundance Selects has acquired North American rights to Orion: The Man Who Would Be King, the feature documentary written and directed by Jeanie Finlay.

The film tells the story of Jimmy Ellis, “an unknown singer plucked from obscurity and thrust into the spotlight as part of a crazy scheme that had him masquerade as Elvis back from the grave”.

The film, which had its world premiere at Tribeca and won the Grand Jury Prize in Nashville, will be released theatrically and on demand on Dec 4.

Producers are Dewi Gregory and Finlay, with executive producers Al Morrow, Suzanne Alizart, Kate Townsend, Nick Fraser, Hannah Thomas, Richard Holmes, John Tobin, Andy Copping and Alexander Preston.

Production companies are Glimmer Films, Truth Department and Met Film, and the film’s supporters include Creative England, Ffilm Cymru Wales, BBC Storyville and Broadway.

Finlay, a former Screen Star of Tomorrow, previously directed...

Jeanie Finlay’s bizarre story of masked Elvis soundalike Jimmy Ellis is as moving as it is entertaining

“They say you can’t make it cos you sound like Elvis. But Elvis sounded like Elvis, and he made it…” Having previously dealt with pop fakery in The Great Hip Hop Hoax, director Jeanie Finlay strikes gold with this wonderfully weird and affectingly melancholy account of how singer Jimmy Ellis found himself at the centre of the strangest chapter of rock’n’roll apocrypha. Dismissed as a Presley soundalike during Elvis’s lifetime, Ellis resurfaced in the late 1970s as the masked Orion, taking his name from Gail Brewer-Giorgio’s fictional tale of a superstar who fakes his own death. Fruitcake conspiracy theories, the emergence of “new” duet recordings with Jerry Lee, and the Sun Records release of Reborn (initially pressed with a lurid coffin-escape cover) convinced fans that Orion was Elvis,...

The name of a Sheffield Doc/Fest session was "The Secret World of Film Festival Programming" and the goal was to demystify how festivals are programmed and provide tips for filmmakers navigating the festival system. Moderated by Adam Benzine, associate editor at Realscreen and featuring Hussain Currimbhoy, Director of Programming at Sheffield Doc/Fest, David Courier, senior programmer, Sundance Film Festival and filmmaker Jeanie Finlay ("The Great Hip Hop Hoax"), the panel delivered on its promise -- and then some. Finlay, whose films have screened at SXSW, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Hot Docs and elsewhere, provided the filmmaker perspective on navigating the film festival circuit, while Currimbhoy and Courier explained the process for applying to and getting accepted into their respective festivals. Here are some of the highlights from the panel: Let's be clear. The odds are not in your favor. Currimbhoy said Sheffield Doc/Fest gets about 2,000 submissions and they screen.

Sean Ellis's Metro Manila was the big winner at last night's Moët British Independent Film Awards.

The film, which centres on a family who flee the rice fields of the Philippines to start a new life in Manila, won Best Director, Best Achievement in Production and Best British Independent Film.

The Best Actor prize went to James McAvoy for Filth, while Le Week-End's Lindsay Duncan took home the Best Actress award. Imogen Poots collected the Supporting Actress gong for The Look of Love and Ben Mendelsohn won Best Supporting Actor for Starred Up.

Special awards on the night were handed to Julie Walters, who took the Richard Harris Award for outstanding contribution to British film, and Paul Greengrass, recipient of the Variety Award for helping to shine the world spotlight on the UK.

The Bifa winners in full are as follows:

Best British Independent Film

Metro Manila -...

It’s a very important night for British film. Celebrating, in a way the BAFTAs can’t, the vital new talents emerging in this country. The British Independent Film Awards is one of our favourite nights of the year, as much a routemap for the people to watch over the next year as it is a celebration of them.

The sheer variety of films nominated is evidence of the potent creative landscape of Britain. From the crowd pleasing and inspirational journey of Steve Coogan and Judi Dench in Philomena, through the haunted and surreal discovery of Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, to the barren urban clash of Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant this country has an independent film industry to be proud of.

There was a great swell of support for one film in particular but the awards point to many successes here. It’s great to see...

The Great Beauty | About Time | Riddick | Ain't Them Bodies Saints | Museum Hours | Pieta | The Stuart Hall Project | The Great Hip Hop Hoax | No One Lives | More Than Honey | Jadoo | Any Day Now

The Great Beauty (15)

(Paolo Sorrentino, 2013, Ita/Fra) Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, 141 mins

Sorrentino proves himself a worthy successor to Fellini here, tracking modern Roman decadence with staggering exuberance and an eye for the stylishly surreal. Filling the Marcello Mastroianni role is Servillo's world-weary writer and socialite, who stalks the city's elite demi-monde of hedonistic parties, pretentious art, cynical grotesques and faded glories – but finds reveries and regrets around every corner.

About Time (12A)

(Richard Curtis, 2013, UK) Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams. 123 mins

A sci-fi element reinvigorates Curtis's trademarked romcom formula, but there's still a feeling of deja vu to this middle-class love story, in which Gleeson uses his inherited time-travelling powers to woo McAdams – albeit at a cost.

★★★☆☆ In the mid-noughties, hip-hop outfit Silibil n' Brains arrived in London from California with the dream of conquering the British music industry. At their first gig, their energy and humour got them spotted by a label and they had soon signed to a highly influential manager. Recording space was promptly arranged and hype had begun to build around these irrepressible Americans that would soon be topping charts worldwide. The snag was, as Jeanie Finlay explores in her absorbing documentary The Great Hip Hop Hoax (2013), that the rhyme-spitting duo was actually a couple of ballsy laddies from Angus, Scotland.

Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd quickly became friends after meeting in their small Scottish town of Arbroath, and bonding over a mutual love of hip-hop. Before long, they were taking to the stage together, but found their wider appeal muted by origins deemed ill-fitting and parochial for the genre. So, the duo...

We at HeyUGuys first saw Jeanie Finlay’s The Great Hip Hop Hoax back in June when it played at the 67th Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The documentary reunited Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain, two Scottish rappers who fooled the music industry (and everyone else they met) into thinking they were Silibil ‘n’ Brains — hip-hoppers from California.

It is now due to be released theatrically on September 6th, ahead of its DVD release later in the month, while Finlay, Boyd and Bain will be attending a screening of the film at Dundee Contemporary Arts, which they will follow with a Q&A.

In the meantime, the film’s stars agreed to answer a few questions of our own…

Whose idea was it to finally bring your story to the big screen?

Gavin: My idea. This is exactly how it happened: when Bill split I stayed in character until 2007 when I finally came clean on stage.

Back in 2002, aspiring musicians Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd were laughed out of an open audition in London, where Warner representatives were looking for the next Eminem. Their rejection had nothing to do with a perceived lack of talent, however, the friends had drawn crowds back on home turf, but because they were from Scotland and dared to rap in a Scottish accent.

The friends understandably wanted revenge, and rather than giving up concocted a plan that would allow them to do so while also exposing the prejudices of a biased music industry. Inventing Californian personae and perfecting American accents, Gavin and Billy became Silibil ‘n’ Brains and returned to London where they almost immediately attracted interest. Dubbed the next big thing, they were signed by Sony UK and welcomed into the industry with open arms.

Comprising video recorded by the musicians long before video blogging was commonplace, clips from...

It may not be African Diaspora-focused, but the subject is one that should definitely intrigue us. Titled The Great Hip Hop Hoax, it's directed by Jeanie Finlay, and is described as follows: Californian hip-hop duo Silibil n' Brains were going to be massive. No one knew the pair were really Scottish, with fake Us accents and made up identities. When their promising Scottish rap act was branded "the rapping Proclaimers" by scornful A and R's, friends Billy and Gavin reinvented themselves as La homeboys. The real deal. The lie was their golden ticket to a dream life. With confessions from the scammers, insight from the music execs they duped and doodle...

With her flame-red locks and a weeklong international tour, you would be forgiven for thinking Jeanie Finlay was picking up where Santa Claus left off. However, the occasion isn't Christmas, but another annual tradition worthy of merrymaking and good cheer -- Record Store Day, which Finlay is celebrating this week with a whirlwind tour of England and America, including stops at the Cimm Fest in Chicago on April 16th and the Webster Film Series in St. Louis (April 22-24), and the centerpiece of her Stateside appearances, a screening at the Walter Reade Theater in New York on Saturday evening, to show her latest film, "Sound It Out," a documentary about the last record store in the small North East England town of Teesside that our own Matt Singer wrote after its premiere at SXSW "isn't just good - it's important."

As with most things that carry such weight, "Sound It Out...

Jeanie Finlay, a young documentarian who got the public to pay for her to make a film about life at the last record shop in Teesside, talks crowdfunding, Status Quo and David Cameron

You'd think the press room at the Austin convention centre would be something of a mecca for film-makers keen to flog their wares. Yet only a handful have seen fit to stick up a poster on the grey canvas walls which the people who could offer them publicity stare at for inspiration.

One of them is Jeanie Finlay, whose ingenuity in promoting her documentary about the last record shop in Teesside, an area in the north-east of England, is a natural extension of its organic conception and crowdfunded journey to the big screen. There are tie-in gigs and panel events and parties. There's endless flyers and customised earrings by Tatty Devine. Battery-powered record players came along in her luggage,...