Aberdeen City and Shire Film Festival 2009

The inaugural Aberdeen City and Shire Film Festival has kicked off with fine focus as an opening gala screening of locally born director Mark Stirton’s One Day Removals played to a packed Belmont Picturehouse. The ensuing Q&A proved that there’s much interest in the film-making process from North East inhabitants while the launch of The Hub (Film Festival HQ) at Snafu’s Five Bar had local headstrong visual artist unit Do It! provide an accessible creative hoe-down into the early hours. Andy Kennedy, tutor from Gray’s School of Art, has programmed a daily schedule of work from local, emerging, young film-makers and visual artists to promote their wares in the week long showcase.

Indeed this bar location makes for a perfect social introduction for newcomers looking to get involved in these fields too. The following day’s prolific program saw Peacock Visual Arts host the CBBC and Aardman collaborator’s The Brothers McLeod for kids’ animation workshops, a Q&A and the screening of their latest film Codswallop. The brothers even took the opportunity to get their hands dirty in PVA’s screen-printing studios, perhaps suggesting a further juicy collaborative-coup for the Aberdeen printers. It may have popped up slightly under the radar for its initial year but from its opening weekend the evidence suggests that a key gripping of talent and audience will be in sight for future years of the Aberdeen City and Shire’s Film Festival. This year's event continues until 1 August.