'Miss It At Your Peril': You Instead Rocking the Film World in Berlin & Glasgow

Excitement is certainly building before the sold-out premiere of You Instead at the Glasgow Film Festival on the 25th. Witness: the newest film from Sigma is already making some serious waves as Bankside Films screened the movie for buyers this week at the Berlin Film Festival. Latest word has it that its going down like a storm among the buyers with great feedback and interest. Of course as only rock and roll will have it, the showing of the film got off to a bit of a turbulent start and involved some quick actions on the part of Team Sigma (gooooo Colin! :))
Per the official Glasgow Film Festival blog:

You Instead was screened to potential buyers on Thursday night but only just. A corrupted file meant that a member of the Sigma team galloped to the rescue, boarding a plane and hand-delivering a replacement to the waiting crowd of buyers in Berlin.

Fortunately, they all waited the necessary forty minutes and, in the words of producer Gillian Berrie, 'the response was fantastic. You Instead rocked Berlin.' Makes us all even prouder that the Glasgow Film Festival has been chosen to host the home town world premiere of You Instead on February 25th. The film will then have its North American premiere in March at the incredibly cool SXSW Festival in Texas.

The Guardian is also reporting on the upcoming screening of You Instead at the Glasgow Film Festival, noting over the weekend the following (see clipping as well)

Perhaps Edinburgh should start looking over its shoulder at "the fastest-growing film event in the UK". But Scotland's big enough for the both of them, for now. This one's almost too big for itself, as evidenced by the mini-festivals within it: a promising music and film festival, a shorts festival, horror strand FrightFest. And that's before you get to the international selection, the Meryl Streep and Ginger Rogers retrospectives, etc. Best of all is the healthy amount of British, and especially Scottish talent around. David "Young Adam" Mackenzie returns with rockers' romance You Instead, Natalie Press leads Hebridean family thriller Island, Ken Loach introduces Route Irish, and his son Jim makes his directing debut with Oranges And Sunshine.

Be sure to check out the official You Instead Facebook page for exclusive and fun contests, first looks from the film (including a new photo of stars Luke Treadaway and Matt Baynton), and dont forget their official Twitter for more! For as the preview on the Glasgow Film Festival reads on You Instead ..."Shot in a swirl of energy during the five days of last Summer's T In The Park it is like a funny, frisky, endearing collision between the Before Sunset/Before Sunrise indie spirit of Richard Linklater and the fizzing energy of those Beatles films that Richard Lester made in the Swinging Sixties. Miss it at your peril.

Awesome!

For more on the making of the film, be sure to check out this earlier interview from the Scotsman, where director David Mackenzie discusses his groundbreaking 5 day shoot on this motion picture at the T in the Park Festival:

It has a dynamic young British cast headed by Luke Treadaway and Natalia Tena (Tonks from the Harry Potter movies), and could be Mackenzie's happiest film to date. It is certainly his fastest. Sigma producer Gillian Berrie pulled out all the stops to get clearance to film at T in the Park for the crowd scenes.

Then Mackenzie decided that "wasn't challenging enough" and suggested they try to shoot the whole movie there.

The film team based themselves in a compound between the Main Stage and the NME Stage, contending with the ever-present throb of bass and the armies of wellies marching from one stage to another. It was exhausting but exhilarating. Mackenzie's voice fills with excitement when he talks about it.

"It's a great method. There's something about throwing everyone into that environment that unifies everyone. Somehow forcing oneself into a live environment and shooting very quickly is a liberation. You don't have control of the environment but as long as you're able to think on your feet and everyone is cool and able to roll with the punches, you can get incredible stuff."

The poetic cinematography of Mackenzie's earlier films hasn't disappeared in the frenzy: he describes a shot filmed at dawn where hundreds of seagulls swirl in the sky. "It was really visually poetic and magical. To begin with, I think we all thought the whole thing was going to be impossible, but it got better and better. The opportunities just kept on opening up, and we were more fighting fit to take advantage of them."

However, there were also moments when it rained, or when the entire film crew got boxed in by the arrival of Jay-Z's entourage, or the 1,500-strong crowd they had arranged as extras headed off en masse to catch a burlesque show. "You've got nearly 100,000 people out having a good time, not interested in having us getting in their way. That was kind of interesting."

The trade-off was that they were able to capture the atmosphere, energy and spontaneity of a live music festival.

"What's nice is the lightness of the material mixing with the grittiness of the way we shot it. It is able to avoid being too fluffy, which makes me a lot more comfortable about it. What I hope you get from the movie is the sense that you're there. Watching it is making me want to go and hang out at music festivals. I hope we get free tickets next year. We might get to see some bands!"