Chinese film

I was privileged to host a civic diner for many folk involved in the wonderful celebration of Chinese film Chinemachina 07 which is happening in Edinburgh just now China is huge and influencial on our lives, an influence that is set to grow and yet we know so little about it. This festival offers a little light, a wee window on that mysterious and exciting yet still a little forbidding country.The folk I met were lovely, including Maggie Cheung a genuinely down to earth woman yet who is the superstar of Chinese film at present. And a wee bonus was meeting, for the first time, my fellow Fifer and a real boyhood hero of mine, Richard Jobson film maker and one time lead singer of the “Skids”. once Scotland premier punk band. An undervalued Scottish star if ever there was one. Though we were at school in Dunfermline at the same time, our schools were at opposite ends of the play field but never would we meet, that old Scottish denominational affliction hitting Fife just as hard as it did (and sometimes still does) other parts of our nation.