The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford
When a fantasy TV series descends on a Scottish town and eclipses its local mythology, a grieving tour guide’s hold on the past begins to slip. Seán Dunn crafts a darkly comic study of ageing, identity and the fictions we cling to when everything around us shifts.
Sir Douglas Weatherford, an eighteenth-century inventor and philosopher, is the most famous son of Arberloch. This unassuming village has a visitors’ centre dedicated to him, where Kenneth works as a tour guide, flamboyantly dressed as Sir Douglas himself. He feels so close to Arberloch’s solitary historical claim that he now speaks of Weatherford almost as a relative. Which, in so many ways, is bad enough. But when a television crew arrives to shoot scenes for a fantasy series with the rather enchanting title The White Stag of Emberfell, Sir Douglas is reduced to a triviality.
With the show’s exuberantly costumed fan base descending on Arberloch and the production spending money on a scale villagers could scarcely imagine, Kenneth’s world begins to collapse.
For his fiction-feature debut, Seán Dunn clearly understands that the casting of a lead can define a film. In Peter Mullan, he has found its centre. Mullan gives Kenneth a bruised dignity that shapes the entire film, revealing the cracks and yearnings of a man who is slowly realising that the world has moved on without him.
– Vanja Kaludjercic
Film details
- Country of production
- United Kingdom
- Year
- 2026
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2026
- Length
- 95'
- Medium/Format
- DCP
Shows of "The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford"
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Pathé 6In-personEnglish subtitledPress & Industry
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Pathé 5In-personwith Q&AEnglish subtitled
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Pathé 4In-personwith Q&AEnglish subtitled
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de Doelen Jurriaanse ZaalIn-personwith Q&AEnglish subtitled