The Inaccessible Blog

THE SCOTSMAN: Another Inaccessible Pinnacle Conquered?

31st March 2007

The Celtic Media Festival was on last week in Aros, Portree, Isle of Skye. Although no Gaelic television programme received an award, BBC Radio nan Gaidheal received an award for the best radio station and Mary Ann Kennedy won the award for the best radio personality.

For those who were present though, the prizes were not the most interesting part of the festival but the opportunity to see a new film. Seachd – The Inaccessible Pinnacle is the first Gaelic film of the 21st century.

Imagine that. A complete film in Gaelic, a hour and a half duration. Who would have expected it?

I can’t say when and where the general public will see it (although it would be interesting to see a Gaelic film on the Screen Machine which travels throughout the Highlands and Islands), but I must say it is an excellent film.

The majority of the film is shot on the Isle of Skye. It is about a young boy, Angus, (played by Pàdruig Morrison), and the stories his grandfather (Aonghas Pàdraig Campbell), used to tell him. These stories are about the truth when the truth is sometimes hard to bear.

This is not a light hearted film but is meaningful and substantial, without being too dark. You could watch it three or four times and still see something new each time. It is obvious that a lot of thought and work went into it. And Pàdruig Morrison is to be praised for his performance in the leading role.

I hope everybody has an opportunity to see the film soon. There is more information available on www.seachd.com.

Who knows – we might see Seachd on the new digitial channel when it is launched later this year, It is now definite that the channel will happen as Patricia Ferguson has said that the Scottish Executive are giving an extra £3m to Seirbheis nam Meadhanan Gàidhlig. The budget for Gaelic television is now over £12m. That is another Inaccessible Pinnacle that has, almost, been conquered.

By James Mac a' Bhreatannaich

Binnean do-ruigsinneach eile ga ruighinn?

RÈ na seachdain seo, tha Fèis nam Meadhanan Ceilteach air a bhith a' gabhail àite ann an Àros ann am Port Rìgh anns an Eilean Sgitheanach. Ged nach d'fhuair prògram telebhisean Gàidhlig duais am-bliadhna, fhuair BBC Radio nan Gaidheal an duais air son stèisean rèidio na bliadhna 's fhuair Màiri Anna NicUalraig an duais air son neach-aithris/pearsa as fheàrr air an rèidio.

Dhaibhsan a bha an làthair, ge-tà, cha b'e an rud as inntinniche cò a bhuannaich duaisean na fèise ach gun robh cothrom aca film ùr fhaicinn. Se Seachd - The Inaccessible Pinnacle a' chiad fhilm Gàidhlig san 21mh linn.

Smaointich air a-sin. Film gu tur anns a' Ghàidhlig, uair gu leth dheth. Cò shaoileadh gum faiceamaid a leithid?

Chan fhaod mi a ràdh fhathast cuin agus ciamar a chì a' mhòr-shluagh e (ged a bhiodh e inntinneach film Gàidhlig fhaicinn anns an Screen Machine a tha a' siubhal mun cuairt na Gaidhealtachd 's nan eilean), ach their mi gur e film sàr-mhath a th' ann.

Tha e air a shuidheachadh cha mhòr gu tur san Eilean Sgitheanach. Tha e mu dheidhinn balach òg, Aonghas (air a chluich le Pàdruig Moireasdan), agus na sgeulachdan a bhiodh a sheanair (air a chluich le Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul) ag innse dha. Tha e mu dheidhinn mar a tha sgeulachdan ag innse fìrinn dhuinn an uair a tha an fhìrinn math dh'fhaodte doirbh a cluinntinn.

Chan e film aotrom a th' ann ach obair a tha brìoghmhor, susbainteach gun a bhith ro dhorcha. Dh'fhaodadh tu coimhead air trì no ceithir tursan agus bhiodh tu fhathast a' lorg rudeigin nach do mhothaich thu roimhe. Tha e follaiseach gun deach uidhir de smuain 's de dh'obair a-steach ann. Agus tha Pàdruig Moireasdan òg ri mholadh airson an dòigh sa bheil e a' cluich a' phrìomh phàirt.

Tha mi an dòchas gum bi an cothrom aig a h-uile duine am film fhaicinn ann an ùine gun a bhith fada. Gheibhear barrachd fiosrachaidh mu dheidhinn aig www.Seachd.com.

Cò aig a bheil fios - math dh'fhaoidte gu faic sinn Seachd air an t-sianal ùr didsiteach Ghàidhlig nuair a thòisicheas e nas anmoiche sa bhliadhna. Tha e a-nis cinnteach gun tèid an sianal air adhart an dèidh do Phatricia NicFhearghais a ràdh gum bi Riaghaltas na h-Alba a' toirt £3 millean a bharrachd do Sheirbheis nam Meadhanan Gàidhlig. Tha sin a' ciallachadh gum bi tuilleadh 's £12 millean ann airson telebhisean Gàidhlig bho seo a-mach. Sin Binnean Do-Ruigsinneach eile a tha sinn a-nis, cha mhòr, air ruighinn.

Le Seamus Mac a' Bhreatannaich

http://news.scotsman.com/gaelic.cfm?id=498942007

http://www.seachd.com

THE HERALD: Gaelic film aims Skye high

24th March 2007 For days producer Christopher Young kept his eye on the weather forecasts and the sky above his home.  And then, when the weather closed in and snow began to fall, he got our of bed in the wee small hours and set off up one of Scotland’s most formidable mountains. He set off in the dark, at 3:30 in the morning to climb almost 1000 metres to the top of the Inaccessible Pinnacle on Sgurr Dearg in Skye’s Cuillin mountains range, the only summit in the UK that is attainable only by rock-climbing and a peak that defeated even Sir Hugh Munro.  Accompanying him were director Simon Miller, three actors and a small crew, with the intention of shooting the dramatic opening scenes for his new feature film, on of the most ambitious and challenging ever made in Scotland and one of the very, very few to be shot in Gaelic.  Entitled Seachd – seven in Gaelic – with the alternative English title of The Inaccessible Pinnacle, it will be screened at the Celtic Media Festival on Skye on Wednesday. Young, whose previous films include Venus Peter (1989), Gregory’s Two Girls (1999) and Festival (2005), was working on a budget of less than £700,000, which would be low for any feature, let alone one that involves myth and magic and jumps back and forward between the present day and ancient times.  In the opening scene, two climbers die on Sgurr Dearg, leaving three children to be brought up by their grandparents, and Young and his team had to be careful to avoid the same fate as the characters. “It’s a very precarious ridge,”  he says.  “When you’re walking along the street, if you fall off the pavement, you might twist your ankle.  If you’re walking along the ridge and you fall off, you’ll die.  It’s a very basic thing. “When we shot in the snow, there was a really, really strong wind.  There’s no margin for error when you’re up there.  You have to be very focused and you have to be very clear about what you’re doing.”  Two of the actors were stand-ins, because it was considered too dangerous for inexperienced climbers. In the film, the grandfather regales the children with a series of far-fetched stories involving a magic horse, a man who has lived for almost 1000 years and a couple of mismatched shipwrecked sailors: one from the Spanish Armada, the other a Scot called MacDonald, who may have had a lasting impact on fast food. Seachd plays like a handsome-looking Gaelic variation on Big Fish and the family classic The Princess Bride, without the Hollywood production values and special effects obviously.  Young had no option but to get everything he could out of Skye’s natural assets. In a bizarre twist, Seachd was one of two fantasy features shot on Skye last summer.  The other was Stardust, with Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro and an estimated budget of £35m, 50 times Young’s budget.  But he is in no doubt about who got the best out of the island. “I was quite amused, because they came up and it was like an army of 150 with Winnebagos and all the usual madness and they just had terrible weather,” he says,” I don’t think they any idea about Skye at all, but they had planned various stuff at various specific locations and there was no flexibility, whereas I think one of our advantages was I would go out with a camerman and a director at midnight and would get a fantastic shot of the Cuillins with the sun setting.” Seachd was shot almost entirely on the island and it was quite a change for Young to be working in his own back yard, coming home to his wife and family each night (or morning) instead of disappearing off to Edinburgh, as he did while working on Festival or London as he did when he made The Final Curtain with Peter O’Toole. “What’s great from my point of view is for everybody to be in involved in production, because they see what I’m doing,” he says, “It’s very abstract for them when I go away for a year and then come back with a finished film.” Young was born in Edinburgh, but moved to Skye eight years ago and is firmly settled there with his wife and four children.  He saw Seachd as a chance to take Gaelic culture and storytelling traditions to a much wider cinema audience and provide experience for a new generation of Gaelic writers and film-makers.  Though Gaelic-language TV dramas have occasionally been shown in cinemas, the last Gaelic feature film to be made was Hero, screened in 1982.  Produced out of London with actors who delivered their dialogue phonetically, it flopped in cinemas and when shown on Channel 4. Because of the nature of Seachd, a team of writers and co-directors assisted Miller and Young on individual stories, including the young playwright Ian Finlay MacLeod.  In addition, half the crew were local.  “Part of the deal was to us local people and try to take on students from the Gaelic College,” says Young.  And almost all the actors were local amateurs.  The grandfather is engagingly played by Gaelic poet and novelist Angus Peter Campbell, while Young’s daughter Winnie plays one the of the children.  Some may balk at the use of local amateur actors in major roles, but it continues in the fine tradition that includes Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1964 masterpiece The Gospel According To St Matthew, and the film is a remarkable achievement given its ridiculously small budget. Young believes there is no reason why a Gaelic-language film cannot be as successful as anything else filmed in a language other than English and he is currently in discussions with several British distributors.  “It was probably quite dangerous to say ‘Right, well, let’s make a Gaelic feature film,’ because I could have fallen flat on my face.  I feel we haven’t fallen flat on our face, that we’ve actually done something which is authentic.”

By Allan Hunter

http://www.seachd.com

SUNDAY HERALD: Gaelic movie leads language renaissance

BAFTA nominee set to make only second ever movie in Gaelic tongue.

One of Scotland’s most experienced film producers is to make an ambitious feature film full of myth and magic, and shot entirely in Gaelic.

It is believed Seachd (Seven) will be only the second ever Gaelic-language cinema feature film.

The only previous Gaelic feature, Hero, was directed by a visiting Englishman called Barney Platts-Mills and starred a bunch of amateurs from Drumchapel who spoke dialogue phonetically. It flopped in cinemas and set a record audience low when it screened on Channel 4 in 1982.

Christopher Young, who produced Gregory’s Two Girls and BAFTA nominee Festival, has drawn on Scotland’s growing pool of Gaelic-speaking creative talent for Seachd. The word means Seven, though the film will have the alternative English title The Inaccessible Pinnacle, after the peak on Skye which figures in the storyline.

Young insists he is not aiming Seachd purely at Scotland’s tiny Gaelic-speaking community which numbers around 60,000 to 100,000.

“I believe there is a potential market for the film as large as any other foreign language, subtitled feature – and that can be very large,” he said. In recent years, Chinese films such as Hero (which had no connection to its Gaelic namesake) have grossed many millions worldwide.

Seachd will present a series of stories told by an old man to his skeptical grandchildren. They illustrate facets of Gaelic history and character and include one story in which a girl enters a horse race on a seahorse.

Although the budget of £600,000 is modest, the film is extremely ambitious in scope and vision and Young believes it can appeal to the same audience as the Ewan McGregor film Big Fish and the family classic Princess Bride.

“There is a place for Gaelic cinema alongside other non-English cinema in the global feature film market. It depends entirely on the quality of the product of course.”

Young has made five feature films, stretching from Venus Peter in 1988 to Festival, which was named best film at the British Comedy Awards in December and is up for two BAFTAS this month.

Although born in Edinburgh, he has lived on Skye for several years and speaks Gaelic. Two years ago, he made a 15-minute film called Foighidinn (Patience), in which an old man relates a story set in the Middle Ages, and the feature film will use the same framework and characters.

BBC Scotland and the Gaelic Media Service are backing the new venture and cinema distributors have also expressed interest.

Seachd has been written by a team of five writers and will have four directors, including the young playwright Ian Finlay Macleod. It will shoot on Skye this summer. Young said he was trying to “develop new Gaelic talent.”

He said: “it doesn’t matter what language it’s in, if it’s a good film, it’s a good film. Up to 100,000 Gaelic speakers in Scotland will have the pleasure of seeing a film in their own language and for the rest of us it will be like watching any other foreign language film with subtitles.”

Mark Cousins, of Edinburgh-based 4-Way films, agreed the move was “good news” but added: “It shouldn’t have too much of a commercial impact because it will be competing in the arthouse market, but frankly so do most UK films.”

Christine MacKenzie, of Aberdeen University’s Celtic department, suggested Seachd was part of a Gaelic cultural renaissance.

“It’s part of an ongoing new confidence in Gaelic and I think it’s wonderful,” she said.

A new Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill, approved by MSP’s last year, will given the ancient tongue official recognition and the Scottish Executive is committed to a Gaelic TV channel.

But Young slammed the Executive for failing to fund Gaelic sufficiently.

He said: “Not enough public money is spent on Gaelic in Scotland. If you compare the situation here with Wales and internationally, for example Catalonia in Spain, we have a long way to go. The depths and richness of Scottish culture owes much to Gaelic culture and we ignore this at our peril.”

By Brian Pendreigh

http://www.seachd.com