Professor Gustavo San Román from St Andrews University

It was a pleasure to attend the ESFF this year, and to present, and lead a Question and Answer session with Uruguayan Director Alvaro Brechner and his friend the Glasgow-born actor Gary Piquer, who played one of the protagonists in Brechner’s first feature film, Bad Day to Go Fishing. We also presented and discussed with the audience, Brechner’s second film, Mr Kaplan.

It was clear from the reaction from the audience that they very much enjoyed both films and that they welcomed the opportunity to engage in conversation with the two guests. The questions were plentiful and showed the interest on the part of local people, both Spanish- and English-speaking, in these two films in particular, and evidently in the film festival at large. On both occasions I was present the cinema was full or nearly full, and we had to interrupt the second Q&A session because there was another film coming up – otherwise the conversation would have gone on for another while. It was evident that the shows and the Q&A sessions proved useful and relevant to the local community.