Were you there? In 2008, between 15 and 23 August, two boilersuited revolutionaries, Mark Cousins and Tilda Swinton, rented a grand old ballroom in Nairn, Scotland and threw a movie festival. This one didn’t have stuffy press desks, accreditations, queues, club-weilding security guards, red carpets or throngs of slathering paparazzi. It did have bean bags, baked goods, dance party intervals and the sort of downhome vibe you might find at a Portland healing retreat. The festival lasted eight-and-a-half days, and the screening programme reflected a more urgent and grab-bagish variation of modern cinephilia, with films by Ozu, Lubitsch, Powell and Pressburger, Fassbinder, and even one starring OG pensioner detective, Miss Marple. We tracked down three attendees who offer some glowing recollections of their time in the Ballroom…
Laura Anderson: I…