Connery maintains independent Scotland could help film industry

Attending a premiere screening at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, patron Sir Sean Connery has maintained that the country’s film industry could be helped if Scotland had fiscal autonomy.
Arriving at the UCG Fountainpark multiplex for the screening of ‘Afterlife’, the 73-year-old Scottish screen legend and supporter of the Scottish National Party said that the country’s film industry needed a “change of government”.
He said that Scotland needed independence and its own fiscal economy to “spend our money on what we want to do”.
When asked if he would like to make more films in Scotland, Sir Sean quipped that it would cost less to hire him than the drawings for the new Scottish parliament building.
Sir Sean, who has recently been recuperating from a bout of flu, was attending the premiere, just a short distance from where he was born, with his wife Micheline Roquebrune.
Directed by Alison Peebles, ‘Afterlife’, one of the Scottish entries in EIFF, is a film about a family coping with disability. The film stars Kevin McKidd (Trainspotting) as a young journalist who takes on responsibility for his family when his mother falls ill. The film includes a remarkable performance from Paula Sage, an actress with Down's Syndrome, who plays his sister.
Sir Sean’s latest film ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ is set to open in the UK on October 17.
EIFF, www.edfilmfest.org.uk
(SP)