Sigma's Red Road Sequel Begins Production

In a departure from the norm, there is actually quite a bit of good news for a Monday.

First, Sigma Films of Glasgow, Scotland has issued a press release regarding the beginning of the sequel to the critically acclaimed "Red Road." The second film in the "Advance Party" trilogy, the "Rounding Up Donkeys" movie will see the return of the wonderful Katie Dickie and Martin Compston, as well as the arrival of two new actors to the series: James Cosmo, and Brian Pettifer. While I am not very familiar with Mr. Pettifer's work (seems like a lot of UK TV series that I never get to see), I am familiar with Cosmo who is a pretty good character actor, having great turns in hits like Narnia , and of course Braveheart. And ooh look- another installment for the six degrees of Sigma separation game lol: they both starred together in One Last Chance with my fave Jamie Sives -wOOt! :)

The plot of Rounding Up Donkeys is described thusly: "Alfred Patterson - played by Cosmo - learns of his impending death and decides it’s time to make amends with his estranged daughter and her precocious 12 year-old."
Not much to go on, but it will be interesting to see how they tie this into the previous films. Is he related to Tony Curran's character or prob Martin Compston (and no work yet alas if Tony C will be back)? Not sure how this will work, but I cant wait. I had to watch Red Road twice to really get a handle on what I thought of this film.

For me, I identified too strongly, too painfully to the character of Jackie, as I often feel part of me is like her; surely functional yet all frozen on the inside and locked away from real life and avoiding matters of the heart, just detachedly keeping an eye on the world via the net -or in her case the cameras as life goes on around her. (plus, the scene where she gets out her child's clothes and makes them into her little shape and sits and hugs and rocks it just devastated me. That was so real so honest so true, because if you've ever lost anyone you've loved, you know that scene intimately, the smells the way they feel are still there and I could barely finish watching the movie after that. The ending of the film gave me hope though, so I am hopeful then that the sequel will have more positive and joy for Jackie.

This is possible because details on what type of film the second Advance Party will be is "“a bittersweet, tragicomic, tale of making amends, as well as an arse of things." I so hope this is true; I could do with a laugh these days.

One last piece of good news: Congratulations go to Tilda Swinton for her Oscar win for supporting actress in Michael Clayton (hilarious speech too) Well done!

Bonus Video:You can say what you want about ole wacko Mel, and the Scots may hate this film (I'm adopted but my family is Scottish and they love this) Braveheart is a hella good movie, and it also contains imo one of the top ten scores ever done for a film. Here is a clip from the otherwise very brutal movie, where James Cosmo is seen briefly at the beginning-most of his scenes are fighting or making jokes- anyway it is just so lovely, I may need to go watch this whole film again tonight. Edit: They yanked the clip I had here originally, so here is one close (not so much Cosmos alas) but such a lovely scene worth adding anyway.