AN award-winning local actress will be a major player in honouring film-maker Margaret Tait at this year's Alchemy Festival.

BAFTA-winning actress Gerda Stevenson, who is most notably known for her role as Murren’s mother in Braveheart, is also a director and writer.

Gerda, who lives in West Linton, is set to give a keynote talk on Tait and lead the popular Film Walk at this year’s Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival in May.

And as part of the celebration of the centenary of the Scottish filmmaker and poet, known as the MT100, Stevenson has also been specially commissioned to write a new poem inspired by Tait’s work.

Gerda won a Scottish BAFTA for her appearance in Margaret Tait’s only feature film Blue Black Permanent.

It was the first feature film made by a Scottish woman and continues to inspire young female filmmakers to this day.

In 2014, Gerda showed off another of her many talents as she was nominated for the MG Alba Scots Traditional Awards in the Scots Singer of the Year category.

Within the same year, she was nominated as one the Saltire Society’s Outstanding Women of Scotland.

Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival has been running in Hawick since being established in 2010. The festival has increased in popularity since the beginning and last year they screened 133 films from 30 different countries.

Michael Pattison, Creative Director of Alchemy said: “We are delighted that Gerda Stevenson will join us for the first MT100 event in The Borders.

“Her special relationship with Margaret Tait, developed as they worked together on Blue Black Permanent, gives her a very particular insight into Tait’s life and work.

“We look forward to Gerda’s contribution to this year’s festival, especially the poem which she is writing specially for us.”

The concluding event of the festival, the annual Film Walk, will be led by Gerda and will end in a special film screening at a pop-up cinema.

In celebration of MT100, this year’s film will be one of her masterpieces Orquil Burn.

And Stevenson’s specially commissioned poem will be a response to the 1950’s film.

The full 2019 Alchemy programme, which runs in Hawick from May 2 to 6, will be announced on April 3.