Joe Russo on the Sands festival in St Andrews: "It's going to be an experiment"

At the launch of Scotland’s newest film festival, Avengers director Joe Russo explained that its goal is to help emerging filmmakers gain vital exposure, writes Alistair Harkness

Joe Russo PIC: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

It’s Friday night in St Andrews and Joe Russo is on stage at the Byre Theatre, reminiscing about how Steven Soderbergh helped him and his brother Anthony launch their careers as fledgling filmmakers.

It’s one of those follow-your-dreams, Cinderella-type stories. It’s also one of the reasons why the co-director of the last two Avengers movies has co-founded the inaugural Sands International Film Festival of St Andrews, a three-day event designed to find, celebrate and promote new filmmaking voices.

“Soderbergh all those years ago spent his energy and time helping my brother and I get a foot into the business,” Russo says.

“I now feel like my brother and I owe a karmic debt to do the same for others.”

Hence Sands. If the famous opening sequence of Chariots of Fire has hitherto been St Andrews’ main cinematic claim to fame – it was, of course, shot on the West Sands beach – that might be about to change thanks to Russo, who fell in love with Scotland in general and St Andrews in particular when his daughter came to study here in 2013.

It’s a personal connection that influenced his decision to shoot scenes for Avengers Infinity War and End Game in Edinburgh and St Abbs.

Now he reckons a forward-looking film festival in St Andrews can take advantage of the town’s scenic beauty, its sense of community and its university’s department of film studies to not only give new storytelling voices exposure, but evolve new communal ways of experiencing film at a time when traditional cinematic exhibition remains precarious.

“The film festival is going to be an experiment for us to explore how that's possible,” he says.

“I feel like there’s a real opportunity to take this festival in a direction that’s a little more cutting edge.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription at https://www.scotsman.com/subscriptions