On Tour

HippFest has an excellent reputation for commissioning new music and touring silent film. Each year we select one new commission to tour to other venues and share the excitement and brilliance of silent film and live music.

For 2019, we have a new commission touring to venues across Scotland, continuing our successful track record of presenting original commissions beyond Bo’ness.

Tour 2019/2010

Rob Roy (1922)

Scotland's fear and Scotland's pride, Rob Roy MacGregor…

This impressive and rarely screened biopic of one of Scotland’s best-known outlaws, stars David Hawthorne in full tartan kilt and tammy and tells the story of the MacGregors in the early 18th century. Shot entirely on location in the Trossachs and nearby Stirling Castle, (the 10th Duke of Argyll also gave permission to the production to film on his estates), the film makes liberal use of Scots for the inter-titles (“dinnae fash yersel”) and includes epic fight scenes, with over 800 men of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders enlisted as extras in a dramatic battle.

Director William Kellino | UK | 1922 |N/C 12A | b&w | English & Scots intertitles |1h 20m approx.

With: David Hawthorne, Gladys Jennings, Wallace Bosco, Simeon Stuart

A new score has been commissioned by, and was premiered at, the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival 2019. David Allison’s peerless improvisational skills and talent for composition make him one of Scotland’s most exciting and prodigious musical talents. David has created several successful live soundtracks for silent films, including Last of the Mohicans (HippFest 2018, Celtic Connections 2019) and the 1922 horror classic Nosferatu (HippFest 2011); The Island Tapes and The St Kilda Tapes which toured and sold out international venues.

"David Allison’s terrific live score, combines pipes and drums and flutes and strings to create a contemporary soundtrack which hints at but far from replicates the tartan and twee romanticism of the Highlands." Peter Callaghan, Reviewsphere

David Allison will be touring Rob Roy across Scotland from September 2019 as part of HippFest on Tour, supported by Film Hub Scotland.