Audiences in Aberdeen and Oban have a chance to see an acclaimed movie about a murderer from the Highlands.
Sixteen Years Till Summer tells the story of what happened to Uisdean Mackay when he was released after 16 years to care for his elderly father.
He had been jailed for life for shooting psychiatric nurse Catherine McQueen in the head at her home in Creag Dhubh Terrace, Inverness, on New Year’s Day, 1994.
Filmed in the region over a four year period, the BAFTA nominated and Grierson Prize shortlisted feature documentary film, was made by director, Lou McLoughlan, and is comprised of two films.
The first examines Mackay’s relationship with his crofting father and the second his romance with Audrey, a woman he meets on a train.
Ms McLoughlan, from Edinburgh, said: “I was doing an arts project called, Across the Prisons, in 2009. During a visit to an open prison Uisdean approached me to say he was going on a week’s home leave to Lochcarron visit his father, Calum, who was 92 and pretty fragile. He asked if I could film the visit to create some memories of them both, in case he wasn’t around for much longer.
“I thought it was a decent thing to do.”
That resulted in the film, Caring for Calum, which was developed as part of her postgraduate study at Edinburgh University
Ms McLoughlan, who was named in 2011 as one of BAFTA’s Brits to Watch, decided to turn the film into a longer feature and spent four years regularly filming Mackay after he was released on licence and returned to live in Wester Ross.
She said: “He was on the road to becoming a reformed character and his father invested heavily in him. He assumed Uisdean was going to make a new start, and look after him.
“But that’s not what happened. He was accused of another crime which couldn’t be proven, but nevertheless, if you are on a life licence then it really does mean life.
“You are entrusted to go back to your community if your behaviour is good and doesn’t pose a risk to society. So if you are caught up in anything you go straight back in prison.
“When he’s going back to prison, he meets Audrey by chance on a train and that’s when an extraordinary love story began. She happened to come into his life when he was at rock bottom.”
Sixteen Years till Summer is being screened at the Belmont Cinema, Aberdeen today and the Phoenix Cinema, Oban on Saturday.
