SUNSET SONG.

IT HAS taken the incredible dedication of a Liverpool-born filmmaker to bring Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song to the cinema.

Although the 1932 classic was once adapted for television by BBC Scotland in the early 1970s with Vivien Heilbron in the lead, acclaimed auteur Terence Davies struggled to sell the idea of a movie to a succession of producers, including Scots arts agencies.

Indeed, Davies’ story of conviction and commitment, of triumph over adversity, almost parallels the story of Sunset Song in which a young woman in rural Aberdeenshire has to battle with the land, her sense of commitment and her loyalty to the world around her.

Eighteen years on, Davies has announced he’s finally created his vision of the book. His determination to win out has paid off. And the creator of acclaimed work such as the television documentary Of Time and the City and film The Deep Blue Sea found a producer and a cast he’s delighted with, such as Scots actors Kevin Guthrie and Peter Mullan, who are starring alongside supermodel Agyness Deyn in the lead role.

And if the effort made to re-create the Scots classic is reflected in Davies’s storytelling values there’s little doubt it will delight legions of film-goers when released in early December.