The Judging Panel

Writing: James Robertson - novelist, Andrew Crumey - Literary Editor, Scotland on Sunday. Food: Martin Wishart - Chef/Restaurateur, Sue Lawrence - Food Writer, Scotland on Sunday. Sport: Gavin Hastings - Sports Personality, Paul Greaves - Sports Editor, Scotland on Sunday. Screen: Stuart Cosgrove - Channel Four, Allan Hunter - Film critic, Scotland on Sunday. Music: Peter Irvine - Unique Events, Colin Somerville - Music writer, Scotland on Sunday. Art: Timothy Clifford - Director of National Galleries of Scotland, Vicky Allan - Deputy Editor, Spectrum Magazine. Business: Robert Crawford - Chairman of Scottish Enterprise, Roland Main - Assistant Editor, Scotland on Sunday

How to vote
Simply call the telephone number printed below the nomination of your choice and your vote will be automatically logged. If you wish to be entered into the Scotland on Sunday Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Awards prize draw please stay on the line to leave your details. Or if you have access to the internet, go to WWW.glenfiddich.com/spirit  (Please note: calls cost just 25p). Lines close midday, October 15, 2000

Screen
Introduction
THE Scottish film industry continues its growth with a new generation of talent. A healthy crop of Tartan Shorts has served notice of the next wave of upcoming directors. London-based companies like Ecosse and Parallax are forging closer links with Scotland. Now a favourite location for films, Scotland has served as turn-of-the-century New York for Terence Davies' The House Of Mirth and talk of a purpose-built Scottish studio inches closer to reality. The past year has produced another Scottish Oscar-winner, a pioneering digital feature, international awards for Aberdeen and a range of exciting prospects waiting in the wings from Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar to Ideal Films' Late Night Shopping. Antonine Films have just announced an initiative for new filmmakers entitled 81/2 and it seems there has never been a more exciting time to be a Scottish filmmaker. Hence the unprecedented selection of six worthy nominees.

Ian Bannen
Ian Bannen's tragic death last November reverberated throughout
Scotland. One of our finest stage and cinema actors, his prolific 40-year film career included an Oscar-nomination for The Flight of The Phoenix in 1965 and the enormously popular Waking Ned, released in 1999. Working with a galaxy of greats from Orson Welles and Vanessa Redgrave to John Gielgud and Natalie Wood, he was a Scottish star of international stature, fiercely respected by his profession and much loved by the public.0901 3838029

Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson has made an impressive leap from stand-up comedy to celluloid stardom over the past year, with the release of hairdressing comedy The Big Tease and the international box-office smash Saving Grace. His success story is all the more remarkable because he not only stars in both films but he also co-wrote them as well as co-producing Saving Grace. Scotland's one-man film industry is about to star opposite Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino in another one of his scripts. 0901 3838030

Kevin Macdonald
Kevin Macdonald upset all the odds this year when his riveting examination of the 1972 Munich Olympics, One Day In September, beat the firm favourite Buena Vista Social Club to walk away with the Oscar for the year's Best Documentary. The author of the Faber Book of Documentary, he has directed a profile of Hollywood legend Howard Hawks and won widespread critical acclaim at the recent Edinburgh Film Festival for his latest work A Brief History of Errol Morris.0901 3838031

Paul McGuigan
Paul McGuigan directed the one gangland thriller that really counted over the past year. Gangster No.1, starring Malcolm McDowell and featuring stunning newcomer Paul Bettany, was a blood-drenched saga of revenge and ultimately hollow victory, told with considerable style to spare. His sensitive documentary Playing Nintendo With God revealed a different side to a very promising young filmmaker who remains best known for his controversial Irvine Welsh adaptation, The Acid House Trilogy. 0901 3838032

Dougray Scott
Dougray Scott was the baddie audiences loved to hate in Mission: Impossible 2, a massive worldwide hit where his role as Tom Cruise's arch-nemesis helped cement his status as one of Scotland's rising young stars. Fondly remembered for his part in The Crow Road, his film career includes roles in Regeneration, Gregory's Two Girls, Twin Town and Ever After. He has just finished one of his most challenging roles to date, opposite Kate Winslet in the Second World War drama Enigma.0901 3838033

May Miles Thomas
May Miles Thomas has established herself at the forefront of the digital revolution in Scotland with the award-winning One Life Stand, a low-budget, independent feature that has been the talk of Festivals around the world over the past six months. A writer-director with a mature vision and an empathy for actors, she has been awarded a NESTA grant to explore digital filmmaking and is currently developing two screenplays that have already attracted Hollywood interest.0901 3838034

Michel Faber
Michel Faber was born in the Netherlands in 1960, educated in Australia, and now lives in Easter Ross. He has won numerous literary prizes including The Macallan Short Story Competition (1996), Neil Gunn (1997) and Ian St James Award (1998). His first book of short stories, Some Rain Must Fall, was published in 1998. His macabre and gripping debut novel Under the Skin, a surreal tale of hitch-hiking on the A9, was published in January to wide acclaim and is due to be filmed.0901 3838035

Alasdair Gray
Born in Glasgow in 1934, Alasdair Gray is an artist and writer. His novel Lanark (1981) was a landmark in the revival of Scottish literature. Other books include the novel Poor Things (1992), the short stories Unlikely Stories, Mostly (1983) and Why Scots Should Rule Scotland (1992). His Book of Prefaces was 20 years in the making. A journey through the great works of literature, it is a "memorial to the kind of education British governments now think useless, especially for British working class children." 0901 3838036

Kathleen Jamie
Born in 1962 in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Kathleen Jamie's first book of poems, Black Spiders, appeared when she was just 20. Since then she has written about her worldwide travels in both poetry and prose, in A Flame in Your Heart, The Autonomous Region and The Queen of Sheba, and is widely hailed as one of Scotland's finest literary talents. Her latest collection Jizzen, whose title is an old Scots word meaning childbed, has been shortlisted for several major awards.0901 3838037

Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead was born in Motherwell in 1947 and studied at Glasgow School of Art. She published her first poetry collection, Memo for Spring, in 1972. She has also achieved great success as a dramatist with works including Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (1987), Dracula (1985) and Tartuffe (1985), a Scots version of Moliere. Theatre Babel's production of her Scots version of Euripides' Medea, the story of a wronged woman exacting terrible revenge, was a hit at this year's Fringe.0901 3838038

Denise Mina
Denise Mina, 33, was born in East Kilbride, studied law at Glasgow University and began to write crime fiction while studying for a PhD in criminology. Her entry into publishing was as a writer of Pocket Guides; her literary debut, Garnethill, which won the John Creasey Award for best first crime novel, will be screened as a three-part drama by BBC Scotland, and is due to be filmed in the US. The first part of a trilogy, it was followed in August this year by Exile, which has attracted a similarly warm response.0901 3838039

Copyright 2000 The Scotsman Publications Ltd

Thanks to Missy for the find!