Film-maker and former director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Mark Cousins, who helped the Oscar-winning actress create her own film festival within a disused bingo hall on Nairn High Street, had to leave the Moray town as soon as the event was over to interview Sir Sean Connery in Mr Cousins's home city of Edinburgh.

"The first question he asked me was: 'How was Nairn?'" Mr Cousins revealed.

Though Sir Sean did not make an appearance at Ms Swinton's Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams in Nairn, another Scottish screen star did.

Brian Cox, whose credits include "Troy", "The Bourne Identity" and the screen's first Hannibal Lecter in "Manhunter", made a surprise appearance to show his film "The Escapist".

Before screening the film, he stood up and told the audience that he had got into films as a boy in Dundee, but being involved in the business, it was sometimes easy to forget how magical movies could be, but this festival had reminded him.

"Tilda and I were sitting crying at that," Mr Cousins admitted.

Mr Cox is just one of the many visitors to the festival who have written comments on the Ballerina Ballroom's Facebook website. They include other cinema professionals such as fellow Nairn visitor, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, director of photography on films such as "Atonement" and Oliver Stone's "World Trade Centre".

"These people go to the fanciest film festivals in the world," Mr Cousins said, adding that in spite of this, they had great enjoyment out of the more rough and ready home produced festival in Nairn.

He also confirmed the success of the festival had exceeded the expectations he and Ms Swinton had for it.

"If you look at ticket sales, we sold almost six times as many tickets as we expected to," he said.

"We had the silent Japanese film 'I Was Born, But...'. On a Monday afternoon in London you would expect 30 people to come and see that. In Nairn we got 150.

The festival included some films never screened in Britain before and a world preview of a new score played live for "I Was Born, But...". However, Mr Cousins added the fact someone with Ms Swinton's profile put her name to the festival and was on hand for all the screenings was crucial to its success.

"The other thing was that people could see from our pricing policy (which included free entry in return for home baking) that we weren't trying to rip people off," he continued.

"What was really, really touching was that in just over a week we formed a real relationship with the community. I made a lot of friends in Nairn and there was a real sense of getting to know each other. That is the real reason we will do something again. The fear when you put on a festival like that is you get three easyJet loads of intelligentsia from London and no-one else, but it wasn't like that at all."

Whatever that something will be has yet to be decided though it is unlikely to be a simple re-run of last week's "Cinema of Dreams" Festival.

"What Tilda and I are committed to doing is something in Nairn and something to do with cinema," Mr Cousins said.

"It might be in the Ballerina or it might be somewhere else, it might be next year or this year, it might be a week or it might be a day, but we are committed to doing our best to create something imaginative. Second time around there's a chance people would be disappointed so we'll have to do something different."

c.macleod@inverness-courier.co.uk

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