Not only has the lifting of COVID-19 restriction allowed for the return of Scotland’s existing film festivals, there is even space for a brand new one. The inaugural Sands: International Film Festival of St Andrews will take place over three days, from Friday 25 to Sunday 27 March 2022. Based in the University of St Andrews’ Byre Theatre, the compact programme comprising nine feature films and documentaries.

Aptly for the new festival, the central theme is ‘beginnings’. Among the entries from first-time directors is Long Live My Happy Head, a documentary dealing with a long-distance relationship affected by cancer, from Leith-based duo Will Hewitt and Austen McCowan. Also making her debut is Blerta Basholli with the haunting Kosovan drama Hive, which gained many admirers at Sundance 2021.

Also making debuts are Amalia Ulman‘s comedy El Planeta, which sees a mother and daughter scam their way to a better life in post-crisis Spain. Nana Mensah writes, directs, and stars in the dark comedy, Queen of Glory, which one the Ghanian-American the Best New Narrative Director award at Tribeca. And Jessica Kingdom‘s Oscar-nominated documentary Ascension was also successful at Tribeca, earning awards for Best Documentary and for Kingdom as Best New Documentary Filmmaker.

The programme also features new films from comparatively established names. Down With the King is Diego Ongaro‘s latest, featuring real-life rap star Freddie Gibbs as a musician who turns his back on his career and goes back to basics. I Was a Simple Man is the second feature from Christopher Makoto Yogi, and focuses on the a family in Hawai’i facing the death of an elder and the ghosts of the past. Finally, Jono McLeod‘s My Old School features Alan Cumming in a dramatised documentary about Scotland’s most notorious imposter (and ex-classmate of McLeod), Brandon Lee. My Old School will also be the opening night film.

Each screening will be introduced and then followed by a Q&A session with filmmakers, as well as number of talks and workshops with industry members. Among these is an in-conversation session with Joe Russo (Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and the upcoming The Grey Man). The ‘To see ourselves as others see us‘ panel will discuss exactly what constitutes Scottish film and how Scotland is represented on screen. This session includes Jono McLeod as well as short filmmakers Adura Onashile and Laura Carreira who also have the opportunity to show their respective films Expensive Shit and The Shift to new audiences.

In conjunction with the University of St Andrews, there will also be an academic strand to the programme. (Im)material worlds is an artists’ moving image programme that gives focus to the environmental crisis from Global South and postcolonial perspectives. It brings together recent and new moving image work by four Southeast Asian and four UK-based artists and filmmakers.

Festival director Ania Trzebiatowska said, “I am absolutely delighted to finally reveal the programme for the first ever Sands: International Film Festival of St Andrews. Over the past two years, we’ve been reminded of what a privilege the collective cinema experience is, and that it can too often be taken for granted, so I am hugely excited that we will be able to share these nine fantastic films with audiences. The process wasn’t without its challenges, but we are proud to have a programme that doesn’t just reflect the diversity of films out there, but showcases the quality of work that spawns from the inclusion of new voices. If audiences have half as much fun watching the programme as we had making it, then I’m sure we will be in for a fantastic festival.”

The Sands: International Film Festival of St Andrews will run from Fri 25 – Sun 27 Mar 2022. More information can be found at sands-iff.com/