AnnieGriffin, the writer and director of award-winning UK TV show The Book Group,will make her feature debut with Festival, an ensemble comedy set duringthe annual Edinburgh Festival.

Daniella Nardini, Clive Russell, Deirdre O'Kane, ChrisO'Dowd and Stephen Mangan head the cast of the £1.8m feature which is financedby the UK Film Council Premiere Fund, Film Four, Scottish Screen and theGlasgow Film Office.

Pathe haveacquired the UK rights and international sales are handled by Portman.

Griffinappeared as a student actress at Edinburgh in 1981 and was a regular performerthere throughout the 1980s. Once pitched as "Nashville at the EdinburghFestival", Festival is billed as an Altmanesque expansion of herexperiences that follows various characters caught up in the excitement, dramaand narcissism of the biggest arts Festival in the world.

Morerecently Griffin has won widespread acclaim for her television work as writerand director of Second Coming and two series of the Channel 4 comedy TheBook Group.

Festival willshoot on location in Edinburgh for six weeks beginning on August 22nd and is aYoung Pirate Films production produced by Christopher Young whose previouscredits include Venus Peter(1989), Prague(1992) and The FinalCurtain(2001).

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