The World Today
Brothers Kevin and Andrew MacDonald discussed their respective careers in an ever-changing film industry on Sunday at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 's Keynote session.
Kevin MacDonald, an Oscar winner for his feature-length documentary One Day in September (1999), is also known for his fiction work, including The Last King of Scotland (2006) and State of Play (2009), as well as Touching the Void (2003) and As I Live Now (2013). Andrew MacDonald, meanwhile, is a producer best known for his collaborations with Danny Boyle and Alex Garland on the likes of Cob Trains (1996), The Beach (2000), Ex Machina (2014) and the 28 Days Later franchise.
The session, hosted by Edinburgh TV Festival boss Rowan Woods, began with a blast from the past: the brothers' short film that saw them interview creatives, including Robbie Coltrane, Sam Fuller, and Michael Winner, at the 1992 Edinburgh Film Festival. The pair were lobbying industry names on how to get Shallow Grave made. In the end, Sean Connery stars on the phone; Kevin had managed to get the Scottish actor in his trailer while shooting 1993's Sun in Los Angeles.
The conversation covered a myriad of topics, namely the projects they’re most proud of and the inner workings of getting some of the biggest films of the 21st century over the line. Kevin MacDonald spoke candidly about working with Hollywood A-Listers for the first time on political thriller State of Play . After months of rewriting the script with Tony Gilroy (and spending a lot of money), “[We] gave it to Brad Pitt,” MacDonald explained. “And he said, ‘I hate it.’”
“That was just the beginning of a long and very Hollywood [experience],” he laughed. “A certain kind of wasteful Hollywood cinema, where they were trying to make smart, good movies,” he added, referencing how an entire sound stage was bashed up in Los Angeles instead of shooting in Washington, D.C., because Pitt wanted to stay close to his family. But the role of Pitt ultimately went to Russell Crowe, anyway.
MacDonald said of feeling out of his depth filming with big stars: "I don't think I'm saying anything out of turn to say that Russell Crowe is quite a difficult man and would intimidate the studio to such an extent that they wouldn't really want to set up."
"I'd say to the studio, 'Oh my God, this is a nightmare,'" he laughed again, "I can't control this, man, we're spending all this money," and they're like, 'You're doing great.'"
He also revealed that he had to push for Forest Whitaker to be cast in The Last King of Scotland : “He came in so interested in doing this,” he recalled. “He felt compelled to do this part… I saw this very gentle, spiritual man, but there’s something dark about him, and that was, I think, what he wanted to express. I remember going to Fox Searchlight. They said, ‘Forest is totally wrong. He’s so gentle and sweet. He can’t be right. ’”
He continued: “It became a bit of a battle. In the end, they gave in. It’s one of those great things in life when your actor wins an Oscar, and Searchlight has to admit you were right. That doesn’t happen very often.” His brother Andrew managed to sneak into the Oscars’ Vanity Fair party that year, pretending to be Kevin, the brothers also revealed, where he gave an interview as Kevin for British broadcaster Sky News .
When asked what kinds of projects he finds worth pursuing in the current climate, Andrew simply gave thanks for finding Garland: “I’ve been very fortunate over the last 10 years to work with this guy who can come up with a script literally in 24 hours. So we spend a lot of time producing his movies, what he wants to do, and out of that has come a really good relationship with A24, and that’s really where most of what we do falls into place.”
On the difficulty of filming 28 Years Later and 28 Years Later: Temple of Bones back-to-back, Andrew said, “It wasn’t difficult because there were some key actors who were in the first [part]. That’s why we did it back-to-back. I think the director of the second film probably made it the hardest because she had to take some elements that were already in place, which weren’t necessarily hers. […] Choice,” he said of Nia Dacosta, whose installment is due for a January 2026 release.
The pair fielded a series of audience questions toward the end of the session, where Kevin expressed that he thought many people in the industry were “too despondent” about the impact of AI.
The filmmaker also said he would love to make Richard Linklater's Merely Filmed Over 20 Years with Paul Mescal and Ben Platt. "What a wonderful idea," he said. "That would be so much fun to do."
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025 runs from August 14-20.
