From Sir Sean with love: The legacy that is helping young filmmakers

Sean Connery became a patron of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) in 1996 and his first task was to bring home the UK premiere of Dragonheart, the fantasy adventure in which he voices a dragon.

For the next 14 years, he brought not just films but friends and filmmakers.

He was at almost every festival, packing as many films into the day as he and his wife Micheline could manage as well as seeing shows at the other city festivals - Black Watch at the Fringe in 2006 was one of his favourite finds.

"He loved the Edinburgh International Film Festival," says his son Jason Connery.

"He would bring people and he would talk about it.

"And people would be astonished when they came with him and saw the real adoration that many Scots had for dad.

"He wasn't a particularly showbizzy guy, he didn't go to that many events so it was lovely to see him in Edinburgh, happy and relaxed, and acknowledged by everyone around him."

After Sir Sean's death in 2020, Jason, his brother Stephane and the rest of the Connery family were keen to maintain his connection to the festival he had championed.

"He left some money and directions that we should go out as a family and find things that were important to him and hopefully make a difference" says Jason who co-founded FirstStage Studios in Leith, whose most recent production was Department Q.

"So when we started the foundation, it became a very obvious thing for us to get involved in Scotland with dad being born here and also because of the storytelling in the film industry."

Set up in 2022, the foundation awarded its first grants just six months later to filmmaking projects in Scotland as well as a number of initiatives in the Bahamas, the two places Connery called home in later years.

The foundation has been particularly crucial to EIFF which closed down in October 2021 along with Filmhouse and the Belmont in Aberdeen, when its parent company, the Centre for the Moving Image went into administration.

Although it returned, under new stewardship, it's a smaller, shorter festival, with fewer films. And yet it's able to offer one of the biggest cash prizes at any festival – the £50,000 Sean Connery Prize for Filmmaking Excellence.

Last year's inaugural prize was won by Jack King for his film The Ceremony. This year's prize also includes a bust of Sir Sean, made by artist Eric Goulder, with 10 feature-length world premieres in the running and audiences at the festival deciding the overall winner.

It will also see the first fruits of the National Film and Television School Sean Connery Talent Lab which has allowed six young filmmakers to make their first short films.

"I didn't know what to do, or how to get into the industry," says Mairead Hamilton whose comedy horror Checkout is one of the six short films developed.

"And then I heard randomly, because I'm from the Isle of Skye, that a Gaelic TV series was being shot there."

"I just reached out and I was like, Hey, I'll do anything. Can I be involved?

"I was the runner on that show and then I became the trainee director, series director, and then ended up writing on the show as well."

She adds: "Then I read about the Sean Connery Talent Lab. I'd had an idea for a short film for quite a few years, just bubbling away in my head and I hadn't yet put pen to paper and I thought this was an incredible opportunity to do so."

Ryan Pollok says he's proud to have got a story from his home town of Wishaw on the big screen.

"Because very few films have been made in Wishaw," he says. "So this lab's good for getting people from different backgrounds and getting a chance to bring a proper crew and cast and a budgeted film to life.

"And it's good to get Wishaw on the big screen."

As well as the two Connery Foundation funded strands, the festival is screening the six Bond films the Edinburgh-born actor made with Eon Productions starting with Dr No from 1962 (he later returned to play Bond in 1983 in Never Say Never Again).

Although regarded by many as the greatest Bond of all, Jason says the film's producers weren't convinced at first.

"I remember talking to Barbara Broccoli and she said when dad came and auditioned, he had a swagger to him which they thought was interesting but he wasn't the Bond they were thinking of.

"Then Cubby Broccoli was watching as he left and dad was walking across the street, and the way he walked, dodging cars, and they said OK that's the guy.

"He obviously didn't know the Bond films were going to be this huge success. At the time Dr No was made, the film cost £900,000 and dad was paid £5,000. But he put himself in the way of that, made that leap, and that's where the opportunity is."

The final film, Diamonds are Forever, also left a legacy in the form of the Scottish International Education Trust which Connery set up in 1971, using the million dollar fee he received.

Since then, it has awarded grants to a wide range of projects dreamed up by composers and engineers, economists and political thinkers. The thing they have in common is that all need cash to make the next step in their professional lives.

Sean Connery said that the most important moment in his own life was learning to read and his sons believe his legacy is giving young people that same empowerment.

Next week, Jason will unveil a plaque at an Edinburgh primary school which echoes that thought, and along with the legacy left at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, he believes his father is making the difference he hoped.

"They want to tell stories," he says. "They want to do commercial, entertaining, interesting films.

"And how lovely that these new young filmmakers are coming along and getting the chance to do so.

"These things are lovely for me as his son but more than that, I think they create a positive legacy of dad's life."