IT'S the screenings at nine in the morning that are a killer. And they are getting to Hollywood's favourite Scot, Alan Cumming. But then surely any normal thinking person would agree, a trip to the pictures before you've had time to digest your breakfast is simply wrong.
It hardly needs saying, but the 44-year-old actor and director is back in the Capital for the 2009 Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF). His latest film, Boogie Woogie, receives its world premiere at The Cameo tonight, and then on Sunday, at
the 2009 EIFF Awards Ceremony, Sir Sean Connery will present the inaugural Best New International Feature Award – as chosen by Cumming and fellow judges, actress Kerry Fox and author Lee Marshall.
Over the last week or so, Cumming and Co have sat through all 15 of the films nominated for the award – some at the aforementioned ungodly hour. No mean feat for a man who admits he would "much rather watch films at home".
The accolade for Best New International Feature is open to foreign films receiving their world/international premiere at the EIFF and include Max Meyer's rom-com Adam, which will bring the 63rd edition of the Festival to a close on Sunday.
"It's been a different experience for me this year because being on the jury means I actually get to see loads of films," grins Cumming.
"Normally you go to a film festival to promote a film and never see anything else. Having a schedule of screenings and seeing three films a day has been amazing, as normally I'd much rather watch films at home. It's less stressful.
"It's also been quite a responsibility because, although we all set out at the start saying what we felt was important, you also want to give the award to someone who needs it. Or to the person who is going to appreciate it most in terms of where they are in their career."
Naturally, Cumming is staying tight-lipped about who that might be.
All he will say is, "It was unanimous. We saw a lot of films, but we all plumped for the winner immediately."
Tonight, however, there will only be one movie on the mind of the man best known as blue-faced Nightcrawler in the X-Men franchise – the premiere of Boogie Woogie, a comedy of manners set in London's contemporary art scene.
Based on Danny Moynihan's novel of the same name, it casts a satirical eye over the morality of dealers, collectors and artists as they vie with each other in a world where there is a fine line between success and failure. Although Moynihan's 2000 novel set the action of the piece firmly in New York, director Duncan Ward's vision sees it transferred to London.
Art Spindle is a rapacious dealer obsessed with acquiring one of Mondrian's final Boogie Woogie paintings. The work is owned by elderly collector Alfred Rhinegold, who has no mind to sell – although his wife Alfred is keenly aware of the difference that the £28m price tag could make to the couple's declining years.
Rhinegold is the film's sole bastion of integrity: a stickler for owning art because you love it. Tellingly, though, he's on his way out, and the younger generations possess no such scruples. Hyper-prolific collector Bob Maccelstone amasses art as if it's stocks and shares, while his languid trophy wife Jean is more interested in staking her sexual claim on handsome young artists like Joe. Among the artists themselves, things are no more respectable: most depraved of all is up-and-coming video artist Elaine, whose numerous sexual conquests also provide the raw material for her autobiographical work.
Cumming plays geeky artist/curator Dewey Dalamanotousis. "A stylish geek," the actor corrects lightheartedly, adding: "The film is about how vile everybody is in the art world. I play this person who is actually quite nice. Certainly, of the artists he's quite a sympathetic character. He's like a nice little fish amongst all these sharks.
"I go from having a nice time to being suicidal. It's good to have that story arc, there was a lot for me to get my teeth into. What I really liked about working with Danny and Duncan was, when I said I felt there was one scene missing in Dewey's story, they listened and wrote it in for me. I thought it was really good that they cared enough to do that."
The title comes from Dutch artist Piet Mondrian's piece, Broadway Boogie-Woogie, an iconic image of abstract expressionism painted in New York in the 1940s. That said, the contemporary London art scene, with its enfants terrible, manufac-tured controversies and billionaire Russian collectors, arguably provides an even more fitting backdrop for this tale of deal-making and heartbreaking.
"I knew the book had been set in New York but I didn't read it," says Cumming. "Danny Moynihan adapted it and changed it to London which I think really works. Because in life both he and Duncan are part of the art world, we filmed with real Damien Hursts. It was quite funny, all these amazing pieces of art leaning against lighting stands and shoved up against walls on the set.
"However, what I really like about this film is that it is so biting about the art world. Everyone involved in the art world in it comes over really badly, grasping. It's all about power and money, I like the fact that it is so brutal."
On screen with Cumming, in this savage, sexy art world satire, is an all-star cast that includes former X Files actress Gillian Anderson, Heather Graham, Charlotte Rampling, Hammer legend Christopher Lee, the ultimate Avenger Joanna Lumley, Stellan Skarsgard, Jaime Winstone, Danny Huston and Jack Huston.
Attracting such talent is "a real testament to Danny's script" says Cumming, adding: "And it's a true ensemble as well. It was a little film and everyone did it for peanuts because they wanted to be in a film that had something to say. Certainly, looking at the art world in the present climate, it seems so disgusting that profligacy and greed exists on such a grand scale.
"With a film like this, you go into it for those reasons and hope – more probably than on a highly paid popcorn contract – that it will be really good., that people will respond to it in the way that you initially responded to it."
Cumming will find out tonight, but says premieres, for all their glamour, can be nerve-wracking occasions, even for him: "They can be a bit weird. Usually you are not quite sure where you are going, there are a lot of people shouting at you, and you are seeing the film for the first time. It can be quite an un-nerving experience.
"However, because I have been here for a week or so, and because it's Edinburgh and my mum and friends are coming, it feels less scary."
Cumming flies back to his adopted home of New York tomorrow and so will miss Sunday's EIFF Award Ceremony, but would he like to return as a judge again next year? "Yes," he says, but there's a condition.
With his trademark grin, he says: "I'd try to stop them having screenings at 9am. Either that or I'd have to try to rein in my partying tendencies a little..." He ponders that for a moment, "No, I think I'll just plump for: 'Give me a DVD of a film and I'll stay in bed and watch that one at 9am'."
Boogie Woogie, Cameo 1, Home Street, tonight, 7.30pm/tomorrow, 3.45pm, £8.50 and Sunday, 10am, £6, 0131-623 8030
EIFF Awards Ceremony, Filmhouse 1, Lothian Road, 2pm, £6.50, 0131-623 8030
The full article contains 1305 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
