Richard Mowe: A highly fitting opening gala for the city's film festival

ALTHOUGH The Illusionist had its world premiere in Berlin earlier this year and will be going on general release in France next month, I do think it's a highly fitting opening gala for Edinburgh's festival.

It is very difficult for Edinburgh to get a genuine world premiere that suits the festival, and I don't think we can afford to be too precious about it.

It would have been amazing if The Illusionist hadn't been part of the festival's programme, and it wouldn't have made sense if it wasn't the opening film.

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Edinburgh is getting a fantastic gift of a film by a world-class animator who lived here the whole time he was making the film.

It's a great opportunity for the city to have a film like this.

He says that he fell in love with Edinburgh when he came here for the UK premiere of Belleville Rendezvous in 2003. It was made here in Scotland, the majority of the film is set in Edinburgh and the Highlands, and most of the animators who worked on it were Scottish, although, amazingly, it wasn't actually funded by Scottish Screen.

Although the original unproduced screenplay by Jacques Tati was set in Czechoslovakia, Chomet moved most of the action to Edinburgh and Iona.

Chomet worked on the film for more than four years but it was delayed quite a bit because he was asked to work on two other projects.

It is a bit different from most opening galas in that there are no stars as such, but the nature of the film means it should make a great red carpet event for the first opening gala at the Festival Theatre.