The road dance itself. We had the whole cast together and we tried to keep spirits up and make it look like a party when a hurricane was coming in! There was also a swimming scene that was crazy to film, it was so cold. I had to just scream and run in. The director, Richie, kindly suggested I could appear as an extra. I’m going to be in the road dance scene. Enjoying a ceilidh shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for me,” he said.

It was the power of the story that drew me first. Everything else followed from there. I found that when I began writing The Road Dance, I had a strong sense of place and community because of my family connections and the time had spent there. After the positive reaction to The Road Dance, especially people’s appreciation of the setting, it made sense to set my other stories there. My most recent novel, Home (Luath Press 2021), could only have been set in the Western Isles because it charts the lives of different generations who pass through one home. That doesn’t really happen in urban areas.” I followed up by watching the movie and delighted at the scenery, accents and musical score that enhanced my immersion into the story and sense of place.The authenticity of filming on the island where events happened, adds so much. Weather conditions, short daylight hours, the quality of the light in that place, historical buildings, local people enlisted as extras, musicians from the area, and that extraordinary raw scenery, could not have been emulated anywhere else, and the production’s full investment in the Isle of Lewis shines through. Originally, this film premiered at The Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2021, and there is a deep sense of ‘rightness’ about that, as it is a Scottish film through and through, made during Covid on a relatively low budget, using smatterings of Gaelic, authentic Schottische routines, the practicalities of a crofting lifestyle, and referencing things that have their roots in that unique heritage – the road ceilidh (or dance) being the main one, but it’s general release gives it the wider audience it deserves. She is in love with a man named Murdo, who is interested in poetry and wants to emigrate to the United States. However, before he can do so, he must go to fight in World War I. At a dance to send off the village's young men to war, Kirsty is raped. She tells no one, and the local doctor who treats her injuries makes the rape her secret.

Richie Adams’ task in the film of The Road Dance was to bring that story, inspired by true events, to life in another media. The written word allows authors the freedom to get inside the heads of characters and to convey what they are thinking; it is not always an easy thing to translate the contents of a novel into a visual format where those unspoken thought processes and feelings must be communicated through the emotions and the script. I have a love-hate relationship with film adaptations; sometimes they work, sometimes they are appallingly bad, but always they must, by necessity, take occasional liberties with the original. The Road Dance is no different in that. Much of the complexity of the story is removed, but what has emerged is something that is beautiful to view, disturbing in its subject matter, respectful of the original and that carries weighty resonance in today’s Me-Too culture. Would you like to have your home in America Father?’ Her father was silent for a moment as he looked to the ship before he stooped and swept her up in his strong arms.

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The film was premiered at the 2021 Edinburgh International Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Film. [5] The film was released on 20 May 2022. [6] Critical response [ edit ] As events unravel, Kirsty’s life is changed forever, and the consequences of that evening have a far-reaching impact upon the life she has dreamed of. This was the only world Kirsty MacLeod knew, but she dreamed of more. There had always been restlessness within her; it was the very essence of her. She read in her Bible of peoples and of lands so different from anything she knew.’ Released to tie in with the acclaimed film tie-in, The Road Dance follows Kirsty MacLeod, a beautiful young woman, coveted by all the young men of her island village. She dreams of America, of following the setting sun west to a better life. She meets the man who promises to make her dreams come true, but then the Great War breaks out. You can read an extract of the book, and watch the film trailer, below. He trusted us, knowing our deep desire to bring this story to the big screen was going to be as true to his book as we possibly could.”