Edinburgh`s new £20m International Film Festival building to be named after Sir Sean Connery

Sir Sean Connery is backing the new Filmhouse project, the proposed flagship building for the Edinburgh International Festival. It has thrown him headlong into a debate over the future of one of Edinburgh’s most visible and under-used squares, and exactly what form, at a proposed cost of £20 million, the project will take - reports The Scotsman.

"I have been involved with this festival for a long time, and so many people like John Huston [the film-maker and actor] always declared this was the best and the most original," Connery says.

"I would lend backing to anything that is productive and has merit. They struggled all these years with this festival, they have to find the budget," he adds.

"The building that they are in at the moment is not really a landmark, and a beacon like this would be. You don’t have to be Einstein to see the great value it would have. It’s a meeting place. It should please quite a few people in Scotland that they could make a lot of money out of it."

The Edinburgh City Council leader, Donald Anderson, has already thrown cold water on the idea of putting the new Connery Filmhouse in Festival Square. The project is for now just in the design stages, but would include a series of cinemas capable of seating between 75 and 300 people. It is cast as a unique purpose-built film centre, which would also offer offices to film companies or exhibitions on the art of the moving image.

Those behind the project admit it is still only in the "vision stage", and the location could change, but argue it would take over a hugely unused concrete space in the middle of the city. Festival Square, it is said, is the only place in Edinburgh that boasted absolutely nothing related to the festival this year.

The film-maker Mark Cousins says: "Some other cities celebrate their citizens by putting up a statue, but how much more original to look to the future of cinema, the medium that Connery has made his own so much, by doing a building like this. It’s absolutely the best tribute and, let’s face it, there’s absolutely not much else."

Anderson says: "It’s a very exciting project and, while in terms of the principle of the development we are enthusiastic about it, we think this is the wrong site. I’m sure what Sean Connery is enthusiastic about is getting a new home for the Filmhouse and the festival and we share that agenda enthusiastically."

But for now, he says, if a Connery tribute is needed in the city, why not a statue?

Those objections have been echoed by the general manager of the Sheraton Grand Hotel and Spa, Peter Murphy, who sees it as blocking views over two floors of his hotel, including the restaurant. He suggests that the centre could be set "in any open space in Edinburgh".

But for all the bickering he can inspire in his home country, Connery is still very much a part of the Hollywood elite. He’s currently grumbling about his latest film, Josiah’s Canon, in which he plays a Holocaust survivor planning a bank heist in Switzerland, with the raid aimed partly at recovering Jewish money missing since the Second World War. Shooting was due to start in Prague this autumn.

"Everybody spends so much time in LA talking about the deal that they forget to make the film," he says. "We missed the summer in Prague and they said, wait a minute, we will go in November. I said about two hours of daylight, sub-zero temperatures - perfect."

Back in Scotland, he will next week unveil a new sculpture devoted to the heroes of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel Kidnapped. Standing in Corstorphine Road, the 20-foot-high creation by sculptor Alexander Stoddart will depict the figures of David Balfour and Alan Breck.

"We’ve got so many extraordinary literary figures and stories and history that you can recreate history, Scottish history as it was, as it should be recreated," he says passionately.

Thanks to `Matthewww` for the alert.

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