Glenrothan

After almost forty years in Chicago, Donal reluctantly returns to the Scottish Highlands to make amends with his estranged older brother, Sandy. Sandy needs Donal to take over the family business - the Glen Nairn whisky distillery – but Donal has another reason to return to the land of his birth. One he keeps hidden from his brother as he struggles to deal with the memories of his youth and the trauma of his reason for leaving Scotland.

COMMENTARY
Written by the Scottish actor and screenwriter David Ashton, this bittersweet tale is a film in which past and present are intertwined and family passions are reassembled. Sandy is played by a living legend of British stage and screen, Brian Cox, making his directorial debut.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
This film serves as a ‘love letter’ to something long buried beneath pride, silence, and time. It goes beyond the story of the estrangement between brothers, between past and present, between who we were and who we wish we had been, and explores themes of family, reconciliation, belonging, and the heritage of feeling. With my appreciation for the absurd thrown in. It’s also about a land – Scotland, with all its harsh beauty – that both divides and unites us. I made it with the textures of its people, you could say: their humour, their stubbornness, their pain, and their capacity for grace. It’s where I come from myself, in the end.