Review of The Happy Lands (2012) by Lynne N Steve H — 21 Mar 2013

We saw the film at the Adam Smith Theatre in Kirkcaldy. It was difficult to believe that, bar 2 people, none of the actors were professional - in fact, they were from the Fife community, many of them descended from the mining families involved in the 1926 General Strike and subsequent lockout.

The film is incredible! The script is so well written, and is even in the local Fife dialect ... don't worry, there are subtitles! The cinematography by Scott Ward is excellent; Scott unfortunately passed away soon after the film was completed, so this is his final work. Finally, the acting; it's so hard to heap enough praise onto the cast for the passion, the realism that they showed. Jokie Wallace, a star in his portrayal of Dan Guthrie, has rightly been nominated for a Scottish BAFTA.

We laughed, we cried, we gasped in sheer disbelief at mans inhumanity to man. Ultimately, we left the cinema in no doubt that we had seen a film shot on a low budget, with amateur actors, that would put many of a Hollywood mega-bucks movie to shame. The most shocking thing is that this film doesn't yet have national exposure, it's still on a roadshow. A sales agent NEEDS to pick this film up - the world needs to see this dark slice of our nations history, so that nothing like this need happen again.