Low-budget Scots film hits Cannes heights

Key quote "Glasgow is my town and even if the world of cinema and television is a bit restricted I'd rather make my name there than anywhere else," - Andrea Arnold, Director of Red Road

Story in full A LOW-BUDGET Scottish feature scooped the prestigious Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival last night in a ceremony that also saw British director Ken Loach claim the Palme d'Or.

The Jury Prize went to Red Road, directed by Andrea Arnold. Her first feature-length film, a powerful tale of obsession and forgiveness set against a gritty Glasgow background, was originally turned down for a place in the Un Certain Regard section, because judges did not feel it right for the modestly budgeted £1.3 million film.

Only when festival selector Thierry Fremaux came back with an offer of a late berth in the official competition did the film suddenly enter the running. Right from the start of the festival when it had an early screening, there was a buzz about its chances among the 5,000 journalists attending the event.

The film sees Dumfries-born Kate Dickie play a lonely CCTV camera operator who spots a man from her past and then begins obsessively tracking his movements.

Arnold, 40, from Dartford, was awarded the prize - seen as a bronze medal in the film industry's equivalent of the Olympic Games - at a glittering ceremony attended by the cream of international cinema in the Palais des Festivals.

Ken Loach, took the festival's main prize for The Wind That Shook the Barley. Paul Laverty, a Scot who now lives in Madrid and has been a Loach script collaborator in such films such as My Name is Joe and Sweet Sixteen, wrote the script.

The protagonists are members of an IRA unit waging war on the Black and Tans, with Cillian Murphy returning to his Cork roots as a recruit with a medical background who is a reluctant convert to the cause.

The other main prizes were bestowed on the critics' favourite, Pedro Almodovar's Volver, which won best screenplay for the writer-director and also a collective best actress award for its female-dominated cast, among them Penelope Cruz and Carmen Maura. A collective best actor award was also given to the cast - headed by Roschdy Zem, Sami Bouajila and Jamel Debbouze - of Days of Glory by Rachid Bouchareb, about Algerian soldiers helping to liberate France during the Second World War.

As Arnold and her cast of Dickie, Tony Curran, Martin Compston and Natalie Press prepared to party, Dickie said the Cannes spotlight would not make her think of leaving Glasgow for the career opportunities of London.

"Glasgow is my town and even if the world of cinema and television is a bit restricted I'd rather make my name there than anywhere else," she said. Co-funded by the UK Film Council's New Cinema and Development funds, BBC Films, the Glasgow Film Office and Scottish Screen, Red Road was produced by Glasgow-based Sigma Films, in collaboration with Lars Von Trier's Zentropa Films.

David Thompson, head of BBC films, said: "It's fantastic to see new talent celebrated in this way and Red Road is the most striking debut I've ever seen."

Paul Trijbits, head of the New Cinema Fund, added: "Andrea has created a stunningly visual film which reaches to the very heart of society through uncompromising observations using CCTV, which shows she is one of the most exciting and distinctive filmmakers."