Touching The Stars
 

CATRIONA PAUL gets over her brush with celebrity and considers the state of Celtic film and televison as manifest at the 25th Celtic Film and Television Festival in Dundee
 

FOR THOSE OF you hoping for celebrity stories, this is as close as it gets, so listen up:
 

I was on the third coach back from the gala screening of Blinded to Dundee city centre. So when I entered the bar where the reception was being held, it was already jammed. My party filed in, slowed and stopped, half-in, half-out. People began to take off coats. The girl in front turned round and smiled, probably checking she wasn’t going to take me out with her bag.
 

Low and behold, the girl with the bag was Jodhi May, lead actress in the flick we’d just seen, standing right there. Perfect opportunity for a question. All I could think was, are you the girl out of Last of the Mohicans? The younger sister, the beautiful, gangly, uncomprehending girl who, when she finally gets how bad the situation is, throws herself off a cliff. I loved that movie. I’ve just seen her in Blinded. All I can think about is Mohicans. No other question comes to mind. So I smile back a hello and try to give her some room. Rubbish.
 

In the half-step I take back, I just miss someone’s toes. I turn round to apologise and there is Peter Mullan, sizing up the approach to the bar. Again, I stall, making a deal out of finding my purse. All the while, trying to shake off the picture of Mullan as Francis Black, the character he plays in the film. A nasty, cruel, wholly menacing, evil bastard that Mullan put out there through his voice. Low and gravely, words secondary to how the words were said – promises of retribution to be believed, memories of beauty taking the place of his sight – everything bitter and scary. He was just acting, I tell myself, think of a question.
 

Did you enjoy playing the part runs through my head but then I remember the opening scene, Mullan having it away with May against a bookcase. No love, some violence, implied rape. Hmmm, would he take my question the wrong way? Well, folks, between indecision and second-guessing, the two stars were befriended (by others) and the opportunity for an exclusive disappeared. And so ended my brush with celebrity at this year’s CFTF.
 

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