Edinburgh Film Festival: Day One

We got to Edinburgh late yesterday afternoon, after a long drive in a packed car (we had a job trying to fit everything in - not because of volume but because we had to transport the film posters - which had to be kept flat - and a big box of promotional bloodstained fairy cakes - which Jeanie and our friend Carol spent most of Wednesday making and which had to be kept strictly upright - alongside a car-sick four year-old. Loading the car was like trying to play a very middle-class, grown-up version of Buccaroo.)

Pretty much as soon as we arrived, we had to get ready to go out again as we had tickets to the opening night film - 'The Edge of Love'- and party. Keira Knightly and Sienna Miller were both there, so there was quite a throng of press photographers and a red carpet and everything. We just nipped in the other door. In the screening, I was a few rows behind Sean Connery, which will probably impress my dad. The party afterwards - 40s themed, to tie in with the film - was great, except they were serving free Guinness, which meant that I got too hammered and got to bed too late. This morning I was regretting it, although luckily I didn't throw up on any film financiers or anything.

This morning was the press and industry screening for 'Mum & Dad' - I didn't go, but Lisa did and said we had a pretty good crowd. I met her at an Em-media brunch do afterwards and some of the journalists who had been to the screening were there. (This was obviously when I started most regretting the Guinness.) We handed out our bloodstained fairy cakes (adorned with the film's logo on rice paper) which seemed to go down well. I spent quite a bit of time talking to a journalist from Empire, Damon Wise, who really liked the film - and a few hours later got a text from Chris to say that he had posted about the film on the Empire website. He also put up a photo of the cakes, which means that all of Jeanie's hard work didn't go to waste. Now if we can only translate cakes in mouths into bums on seats for the premiere we'll be all right.

The rest of the day has been about recovering from my hangover and trying to plan what we're doing for the rest of our time here. I'm hoping to actually see some films, starting with Blood Car tonight. It mentions Russ Meyer, Troma and John Waters in the preview, so I'm guessing there might be an edge of camp to it...