Edinburgh International Film Festival

Shane Meadows is a modern-day EIFF institution, but even he was surprised by the reception his mockumentary Le Donk and Scor-zay-zee received following its World Premiere at this year's Festival.

"For me, Edinburgh this year was the most important film festival I have been to," notes the director.

"Before the Le Donk premiere in June we thought the film would end up on telly."

The film is the world's first Five Day Feature, so called because, well, it was made in just five days. To make a short film in this time scale would be considered impressive, but a full feature?

The quick turnaround certainly didn't impact the quality. Down-on-his-luck roadie Le Donk was created by Considine a decade ago, and he and Meadows freestyled the feature with real-life rapper Scor-zay-zee.

The EIFF audience may be something of a home banker for Meadows, but even he was taken aback by their response.

"Once we saw the incredible audience reaction we knew we had to be more ambitious. We couldn't be more chuffed with the result."

The EIFF World Premiere was an occasion to remember, with Scorz arriving in a pink stretch limo, while Le Donk was squeezed into a rickshaw. Even the aftershow party, held in the less-then-plush setting of a church hall, captured national attention.

"Edinburgh was mad," remembers producer Mark Herbert. 

"Donk's credit crunch party was voted party of the week in The Independent, and the tombola with prizes such as inflatable bananas went down especially well!"

Herbert and Meadows invited EIFFtv along to capture the experience, and the crew's footage, in true Five Day Features style, will appear as a DVD extra.

"We thought we had a niche film that would do well on DVD, but after the EIFF screening we are now self distributing the film in 34 cinemas - which is 12 more than Dead Man's Shoes - on 9 October," the producer adds.

"We're releasing the DVD - featuring an extra of EIFFtv footage of Donk and Scorz' arrival, the Q&A and party - two weeks later on 26 October."

If you missed it first time round, be sure to catch Le Donk and Scor-zay-zee during its limited run, or pre-order the DVD. 

Click here to see the trailer and visit www.ledonk.com to find out where the film is screening.