Daniel Kerr gets BAFTA honour for Wee Man role

A TWELVE-year-old boy has been honoured by the Scottish film industry for his portrayal of notorious Glasgow gangster Paul Ferris.

Glasgow-born Daniel Kerr has won a BAFTA Scotland award for his first major film role, in The Wee Man, after wowing director Ray Burdis at audition.

The actor, who had previously had minor parts in supernatural thriller The Awakening and another Glasgow-set drama, Neds, is the youngest ever recipient of a BAFTA Scotland “New Talent Award.”

The hard-hitting drama revolved around Ferris’s rise through the city’s underworld after being bullied as a child growing up in the tough Blackhill district.

Daniel - who made his acting debut in the CBeebies television series Me Too! at the age of just four - appeared alongside Denis Lawson and Clare Grogan in The Wee Man, which also featured Martin Compston playing Ferris as an adult.

Since filming finished on The Wee Man, he won a part in a new Disney fantasy, Maleficient, which stars Angelina Jolie as the villain at the heart of the classic Sleeping Beauty story. It is not due for release until next year.

A first-year pupil at Bearsden Academy, he has also appeared in the TV series Waterloo Road and Being Human.

Daniel won the main acting award at the event at the Oran Mor arts centre, in Glasgow, which was held to recognise emerging talent across the film and TV industry in Scotland.

Burdis told The Scotsman: “I’m absolutely delighted for Daniel.

“We auditioned literally hundreds of kids for the part of the young Paul, but as soon as we saw Daniel we knew he was perfect for the role.

“I hadn’t seen him in anything else before he got the part and didn’t even know what else he had been in.

“He had a lovely confidence on the film and was word perfect, he didn’t even have to look at the script.

“I always thought he would win some kind of award and it didn’t surprise me in the least to hear he had won a part in this Disney film.”

Despite featuring a host of big name actors, as well as Burdis’s track record as producer of The Krays, The Wee Man was poorly received by many critics.

However Alan de Pellette, acting director of BAFTA in Scotland said: “I thought he pretty much stole the show from the other actors in the film. It was a very naturalistic and raw performance.”

Edinburgh College of Art students Kate Charter and Joseph Atkinson won the overall award for “best new work” at the awards, for animated short Hannah and the Moon.

They will now be hoping to emulate the success of former art school students Will Anderson and Ainslie Henderson, who won the UK BAFTA for best animated short at the London ceremony last month. Henderson was honoured at the “New Talent Awards” in Glasow for another piece of work 12 months ago.

Other winners at the BAFTA Scotland event included a recovering heroin addict and dealer, Garry Fraser, who returns to the Muirhouse estate in Edinburgh in his autobiographical film.

He was partly inspired to make the documentary after being angered by the BBC’s own fly-on-the-wall series The Scheme, which was filmed in the Onthank estate in Ayrshire.

A three-strong team from the University of the West of Scotland - Gavin Grant, David Newman, Pamela Barnes - scooped the entertainment award for their “mockumentary” about the west-coast town of Greenock, which they depicted as having secured independence from the rest of the UK.

Mr de Pellette added: “BAFTA is at the core of excellence in the screen industries and we are so proud to recognise and celebrate up and coming talent in Scotland. The standard of entries just gets higher each year.”

FULL LIST OF WINNERS

ACTING PERFORMANCE

Daniel Kerr

THE WEE MAN

BEST NEW WORK

HANNAH AND THE MOON

Kate Charter, Joseph Atkinson

Edinburgh College of Art

ANIMATION

HANNAH AND THE MOON

Kate Charter, Joseph Atkinson

Edinburgh College of Art

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Alan McLaughlin

LOST SERENITY

EDITOR

Simone Smith

RED

ENTERTAINMENT

THE STATE OF GREENOCK

Gavin Grant, David Newman, Pamela Barnes

University of the West of Scotland

FACTUAL

EVERYBODY’S CHILD

Garry Fraser, Aimara Reques

FICTION

AHORA, NO

Elia Ballesteros, Gloria Bartolomé, Kate Campbell

GAME

MR MONTGOMERY’S DEBONAIR FACIAL HAIR

Ronan Quigley, Nikita Bewley, Eilis Armstrong, Charlie McFadden, Stuart Martin, Alex Hopkins, Allan Robertson

ORGINAL MUSIC (Sponsored by PRS for Music)

Chris Bradley

KILLER

SOUND DESIGN

Pier Daniel Cornacchia, Ana Irina Roman

LOST SERENITY

WRITER

Rory Alexander Stewart

LIAR