TWO of the top talents in Scottish film spelled out their ambitions for new projects on their home turf yesterday at the gala screening of The Last King of Scotland.
Directed by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald and starring James McAvoy, the film tells the story of a Scottish doctor hired by the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin as his personal physician.
Speaking before the film's opening at Cineworld in Glasgow last ni
ght, Macdonald revealed he had teamed up with Four Weddings producer Duncan Kenworthy to make a film version of the best-selling children's book Legion of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliffe.
McAvoy, meanwhile, revealed his ambition to make a film about the Highland Clearances - and in the director's chair rather than as an actor.
There are high hopes riding on the UK opening of The Last King of Scotland this Friday. Filmed in Uganda and with Forest Whitaker playing Amin, it has won strong reviews. It hits British screens on the same day that nominations for the BAFTA awards are announced.
Macdonald made the stunning mountain climbing drama-documentary Touching the Void and the Oscar-winning One Day in September. He revealed yesterday that he hopes to make his next feature film based on the story of Scotland's lost Roman legion.
Sutcliffe's novel is based on the mystery of a legion that vanished north of Hadrian's Wall in Roman-occupied Britain.
"It's my favourite book," said Macdonald. "I had to persuade him over a long period of time that I was the person who would do it. It's quite advanced. We are working on the script at the moment, but with feature films it's a lottery if they get made."
Macdonald's next project is a television documentary about Klaus Barbie, the Nazi "butcher of Lyons", set to be shown in the spring.
An extraordinary career is opening up for McAvoy. Raised by his grandparents in Drumchapel, Glasgow, he now lives in London but was expecting 20 family members and friends to show up for yesterday's screening.
He got his first film role at 16, and has played American, English and Irish parts.
He has moved this year from character parts and TV series such as Shameless to starring roles in films, with five due for release next year.
McAvoy said yesterday that he has always wanted to make a film about the Clearances.
"It's remarkable that it's never been touched. It's something that's been kind of forgotten, it's been a huge turning point, not only for Scotland but for our society, British society," he said.
"But that's going to take somebody to sit down and write it. Even then, it's not something that you are going to get funded that easily."
A tale of two tyrants shows just how times have changed
SADDAM Hussein was captured, tried and hanged in scenes that shocked the world, while Idi Amin fled Uganda with his four wives and 30 mistresses when he was toppled from power, and lived in exile in Saudi Arabia until his peaceful death.
"In the old days, the way of dealing with tyrants was they were beheaded fairly rapidly, shot, or allowed to go away and live out their days," said the Last King of Scotland's director, Kevin Macdonald.
"It's only recently the idea of bringing justice to bear on these kinds of people has occurred."
A former general and British army officer who was installed in a coup with British backing, Amin finally fled Uganda in 1979 after murdering an estimated 300,000 people.
Victims of kidnappings, torture and murder ran from political opponents to judges, journalists and anyone who fell under suspicion.
Amin was never called to account for his crimes, and died in 2003.
The Last King of Scotland is based on Giles Foden's novel about a Scottish doctor seduced into Amin's inner circle.
"It wasn't that surprising that he fled. People weren't as outraged as they would be now," said Macdonald.
There was a case for hanging Amin, said Macdonald, but he added: "There's a case for hanging many others. Amin is not the worst of African dictators."
