The Ballerina Ballroom Cinema Of Dreams is a Scottish film festival founded by actress

Tilda Swinton Katherine Matilda Swinton (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress. Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition t ...

. The inaugural event took place in a ballroom in

Nairn Nairn (; gd, Inbhir Narann) is a town and royal burgh in the Highland council area of Scotland. It is an ancient fishing port and market town around east of Inverness, at the point where the River Nairn enters the Moray Firth. It is the tradi ...

in the

Scottish Highlands The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland S ...

between August 15 and 23 2008.

The Origins

A while ago, on an impulse, a quixotic seizure,

rented a ballroom in an old Victorian stone building in

in the North East of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, a seaside town where Charlie Chaplin used to holiday and which has a balmy microclimate and vistas across the Moray Firth to the

Black Isle The Black Isle ( gd, an t-Eilean Dubh, ) is a peninsula within Ross and Cromarty, in the Scottish Highlands. It includes the towns of Cromarty and Fortrose, and the villages of Culbokie, Jemimaville, Rosemarkie, Avoch, Munlochy, Tore, and ...

Cromarty Cromarty (; gd, Cromba, ) is a town, civil parish and former royal burgh in Ross and Cromarty, in the Highland area of Scotland. Situated at the tip of the Black Isle on the southern shore of the mouth of Cromarty Firth, it is seaward from ...

and Sutherland. The ballroom is called the Ballerina. In the 60s and 70s Pink Floyd,

The Who The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist and singer John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are considered ...

and

Cream (band) Cream were a British rock band formed in London in 1966. The group consisted of bassist Jack Bruce, guitarist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker. Bruce was the primary songwriter and vocalist, although Clapton and Baker also sang and ...

played there. The ballroom in nearby Elgin was called The Red Shoes. After renting the Ballerina, Swinton took Mark Cousins to see the place – they were making a wee film about being 8½ and falling in love with cinema – and he loved it and so, together, they dreamt up a festival of beanbags on the floor, that would run 8½ days, that would be a 6 out of 10 on the grunge scale, that would serve home-made cakes and fish finger sandwiches, whose tickets would be £3/£2,or free if you took a tray of home-baking, and that would transform the Ballerina into something like a ghost train.The Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams , Facebook
/ref>

References

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20090217025344/http://www.cinemaofdreams.co.uk/forum/
Facebook Group

MySpace Page
Film festivals established in 2008 Film festivals in Scotland {{UK-festival-stub