Gaelic Film First – Seachd To Tell The Power of Story

Principal Photography for Young Films' latest feature film, Seachd - The Inaccessible Pinnacle is starting on the Isle of Skye. Seachd will be the first ever contemporary Gaelic-language feature film intended for worldwide theatrical release. The film is from Scottish producer Chris Young, whose last production, Festival, gained two UK BAFTA nominations (including Best British Film) as well as winning Best Film at the UK Comedy Awards.

Skye-based Young Films' first two productions, the Orkney-set  Venus Peter and Prague , were both shown as part of the Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival, and Chris Young will be in Cannes again this year giving distributors a foretaste of Seachd.

Other Young Films include Bill Forsyth's Gregory's Two Girls and the Peter O'Toole black comedy The Final Curtain written by John Trainspotting Hodge.

Seachd - The Inaccessible Pinnacle is a feature is a follow-up to the acclaimed Young Films short Foighidinn (The Crimson Snowdrop) and is a collaboration between four writers and four directors including writer/director Simon Miller.

The film is set in present day Skye and tells the story of three children growing up in the shadow of the Inaccessible Pinnacle When their parents tragically lose their lives on The Inaccessible Pinnacle trying to save another climber, Aonghas and his brother and sister go to live with their grandparents. Grandfather is a storyteller, claiming to be 800 years old. Gradually he casts his spell over the children with his extraordinary stories, and Aonghas finds himself magnetically drawn into an exciting and magical world.

This will be the first feature film for director Simon Miller (graduate of the London Film School) from a story by himself and partner Jo Cockwell, written by both of them with award-winning Gaelic writer Iain Finlay MacLeod, Ishbel T MacDonald and well-known Gaelic poet Aonghas MacNeicail.

Simon Miller also directed the short film that was forerunner of Seachd. This is how Foighidinn was received:

"It's marvellous to see short films of this quality...a pleasure you rarely get to enjoy." The Scotsman

"Big budget epics could learn a thing or two from the way Foighidinn was made. A potent reminder of the culture and heritage of Gaelic Scotland...far outlasting its 15-minute telling." West Highland Free Press

The film will shoot on a very modest budget - £655,000. Financed by BBC Alba, Serbheis Nam Meadhannan Gaidhlig (GMS), Scottish Screen and the Glasgow Film Office with support from Gaelic College Sabhal Mòr Ostaig and Highlands and Islands Film Commission. Young Films is handling International Sales. The film will be shooting in Skye until July and will be ready for release in UK cinemas in 2007.