Belfast-based short film reaches first stage of Bafta awards

The director of a Belfast-based short film, starring Aidan Gillen, has said it is "so exciting" after it was longlisted for a Bafta award.

Kathryn Ferguson directed Nostalgie, a story about a faded '80s pop star (Gillen) from England who is invited to perform at an event in Northern Ireland.

Hoping to recapture his glory days, he instead encounters a disturbing truth about his own song that changes everything.

It is based on the short story by Belfast author Wendy Erskine.

A Bafta longlist is the first stage of voting for the awards before the final nominees and winners are selected.

Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster's The Ticket about being longlisted, Ferguson said: "We were a little stunned... we genuinely didn't expect it at all."

She said she had come across the story after finishing her feature documentary Nothing Compares, which is about Irish singer-songwriter Sinéad O'Connor.

After reading Erskine's short story collection Dance Move, it was Nostalgie "that really jumped out" at her.

"I think it was how cinematic it was," she said.

"I think because it had come off the back of working with Sinéad and thinking about artists and their autonomy and I was very curious with this idea of what happens to someone's art when it goes out in the world and they lose that autonomy and all control and it ends up in the wrong hands."

Also speaking on The Ticket, Erskine said handing over her work to Ferguson and script writer Stacey Gregg "was great".

"People sometimes approach me and want to do things with the stories and there's lots of optimism and there's lots of big talk and you just wonder if it's ever going to go anywhere," she said.

"That's just the nature of this type of world.

"But whenever I met Stacey and Kathryn I actually did think this is a bit different because they're both just such powerhouses. Totally inspired me with confidence."

Nostalgie stars Aidan Gillen and features original songs by Dan Smith, the frontman of Bastille.

Gillen plays the role of Drew Lord Haig who is invited to Belfast by a battalion to perform at their centenary celebration.

Drew goes "hoping to relive his glory days".

After playing his hit single, the audience appear unmoved.

But on the opening bars of his long forgotten B-side Nostalgie de la Boue, the crowd erupts.

Afterwards he learns why, the battalion had adopted his song during the Troubles and used it as a rallying cry.

Ferguson said there was "a lot of back and forth" when it came to creating the songs for the film.

"Dan would come up, and he was on tour with Bastille, he'd been in the back of his tour van, writing lyrics and sending demos," she said.

"And we were just trying to make sure that it was authentically believable as a 1986 hit, you know, and it also had to have a hook and it had to be like an earworm because it was an anthem."