Screening three to four films each day, the Screen Machine will show classic films from Britain and the USA, as well as Japan, France, Iran, India and Iceland, with many fitting in with the Pilgrimage's "road movie" theme, but others will recognise the Highland setting.

"We're screening Peter Watkins' famous film of 'Culloden' at Culloden itself. That's something that's never been done before," critic and film-maker Mark Cousins, who is co-director of the project, said.

"We're also showing the brilliant Japanese version of MacBeth — 'Throne of Blood' — at Cawdor, again for the first time, so that should be very resonant."

Instead of appearing on the screen, Swinton will spend the first week of August organising and hosting screenings of her own across the Highlands from Kinlochleven and Strontian to Loch Ness, Cawdor and Culloden, before parking mobile cinema, The Screen Machine, in Nairn for a four-day residency.

Last August, Swinton and Cousins transformed a former bingo hall and dancehall in Nairn, where the actress lives, into the Ballerina Ballroom of Dreams, which gained worldwide attention with its rough and ready facilities, including deckchairs and bean bags for seating, and a pricing policy which allowed cinema-goers to exchange home-baking for tickets.

Now, with the Ballerina Ballroom unavailable and having exported the concept to China where they showed a selection of Scottish films in a Beijing cinema re-decorated to look like a Caledonian forest, Swinton and Cousins are going on the road with their cinematic Pilgrimage, which begins in Lochaber on 1st August, and are looking for volunteers to help haul the 37-tonne Screen Machine mobile cinema over its five-day journey.

"Why? To make a pilgrimage for cinema. To bear witness to its wonders. In tribute to the road movie genre. In tribute to the brilliance if the Scottish land. To show the world that film deserves such an effort," Swinton declared.

Fortunately, the volunteers will not have to haul the cinema the whole way across Scotland, and their physical efforts will be confined to quiet stretches of road, preferably in sites of great beauty. At other times the mobile cinema will continue its journey under its own power while the volunteers travel on a double-decker bus.

Like the Ballerina Ballroom before it, Swinton also plans on giving the mobile cinema a magical transformation.

Tilda Swinton at the opening of her film festival last year.

"We will dress up the Screen Machine 2 in a totally removable way that will do absolutely no harm to the vehicle. Our inspiration is an ice cream van/Tardis/Christmas tree/ghost train/ Tata truck in Pakistan," Swinton revealed.

"Like an ice cream van, the machine will play songs to draw people towards it."

Swinton also likened the arrival of the Screen Machine in each village to the circus coming to town with each volunteer bringing with them tartan rugs to make a field of tartan adding to the colourful prospect of the cinema itself.

"Most of the movies are about the sheer fun of self loss, the unravelling, the gear change-down that travel affords," Swinton said.

"In most of the films, the main characters have a social or psychological reason to leave town or set off on a quest, but often, perhaps when the landscape they're travelling through opens out into a vista or there's a fork in the road, the story goes down a gear. The protagonists go more with the flow."

Swinton and Cousins are releasing their itinerary to the local press first to let Highlanders have first chance to buy tickets, but the film titles and schedule will also be published on the internet.

"So that people around the world can watch the films and do the Scottish pilgrimage with us, in their heads," Swinton added.

The five-day pilgrimage will also be recorded in photographs, drawings, diaries and blogs with the aim of publishing a book or special issue magazine recording the experience.

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