Nearly threemonths after announcing US distribution plans, Hamish McAlpine's Tartan Filmsis gearing up to make Joseph Mealey and Michael Shoob's Bush's Brain its first theatrical release later thismonth.

McAlpine negotiated US rights to the picture with CassianElwes of the William Morris Agency and plans a home entertainment release onOct 12. Mealey and Shoob also produced.

Based on JamesMoore and Wayne Slater's bestseller, the picture charts the rise to prominenceof the President's hugely influential chief political adviser Karl Rove.

According to apress statement issued on behalf of Tartan yesterday (4), this is the firsttime since the days of Richard Nixon that a political consultant has had anoffice in the West Wing.

Nixon's adviserin question was H R "Bob" Haldeman, who eventually served 18 months in prisonfor his part in the Watergate cover-up.

"Bush's Brain is an important work that will introducethe American people to the svengali puppetmaster in the White House, pullingthe presidential strings," McAlpine said in the statement.

"This is a greatfilm to launch the theatrical component of Tartan Films."

Next up for Tartan will beCatherine Breillat's controversial Anatomy Of Hell in September; Park Chan-wook's Sympathy For MrVengeance later this year; the samedirector's Cannes Grand Jury Prize winner and Korean hit Old Boy in February 2005; and Ji-woon Kim's Tale Of TwoSisters and Michael Winterbottom's NineSongs next year.