Summary
TO have your debut feature film in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes is achievement enough. To attract rave reviews from influential US critics, and a standing ovation from your first paying audience, is verging on the unheard of. Little wonder that the director of Dear Frankie, Shona Auerbach, is having trouble taking it all in. "You don't imagine it for one minute," says the 36- year-old director. "It's all happened like a storm; it's fantastic."
Shot in Glasgow and Greenock and co-produced by Scottish Screen, Dear Frankie tells the tender story of single mother Lizzie, who fakes letters to her son Frankie from his absent father, to defend Frankie from the truth about their family. As far as Frankie is concerned, his father is away at sea; in reality, he is an abusive and violent man. The web gets more tangled when Frankie becomes determined to see his father, requiring Lizzie to enlist the services of an impostor, played by Gerard Butler. Emily Mortimer stars as Lizzie, with Jack McElhone as Frankie. Written by Andrea Gibb, the film was first conceived as a 15-minute short, which Gibb unsuccessfully pitched to Scottish Screen's Tartan Shorts scheme. The script then fell into the hands of Auerbach, who was looking for her first feature idea.See the full content of this document
Extract
A Cannes Debut That's Straight From a Hollywood Script
Auerbach is half Scottish and attended film school in Poland, where she was influenced by the intense but considered style of eastern European c...
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