Glasgow-based producer Gillian Berry of Sigma Films has secured a distribution deal with The Feature Film Company for her first feature, The Last Great Wilderness, which has just finished shooting.

This latest Scottish feature should now be seen on the nation’s screens in the coming autumn.

Berry had approached the distributors with the script well before filming began. In March, she gave them a sneak peek at the work in progress. 'They saw the first week's rushes and loved them and jumped on it immediately,' says Berry.

Instead of waiting to see the finished product, the Feature Film Company signed them up and have secured distribution to 15 cinemas already, with more in the pipeline.

The film is a road movie that begins in London and ends in Scotland, it features Chewin' The Fat star Ford Kiernan in a supporting role as an 'agoraphobic former hardman DIY fanatic', according to Berry. The leading characters are Charlie, an artists' manager whose big star, a young musician Charlie groomed to success, has run off with his wife and written a song about her which is rapidly climbing the charts. As Charlie sets off for Scotland to torch the musician's house, he is joined by runaway gigolo Vince, fleeing the wrath of a dangerous man after sleeping with his wife. They end up at a retreat, full of weird and wonderful characters including Kiernan's Eric.

This is Sigma's first feature/ Like many debut films, its genesis has been long and often painful.

The original script was written five years ago by Alastair Mackenzie, who plays the lead, and Michael Tait. The film is directed by Alastair's brother David, who won acclaim for his 1999 short, California Sunshine.

Berry and the Mackenzie brothers set up Sigma in 1996, but they have spent the years since then honing their skills. David has directed another short, Somersault, and a documentary for Channel 4. Berry has worked with Peter Mullan on Orphans and two of his short films, and in casting for Rat Catcher and My Name Is Jo, as well as producing David's shorts.

Last year, Sigma raised development money for The Last Great Wilderness and the partners spent a year rewriting it with advice from experienced writers, directors and development specialists.

Berry managed to bring in Breaking The Waves Director Lars Von Trier's film company, Zentropa, as co-producers and the rest of the £500,000 budget was raised from the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish film company Monkey Puzzle.

Filming began on a Sunday in early March. Berry had been tracking the foot and mouth epidemic, but so far it had not encroached on any of her outdoor locations. The Friday before the shoot began the epidemic flared up and wiped out 80% of her locations.

The weekend was spent frantically rescheduling the shoot and searching for new locations. The indoor scenes were moved forward to the first week and Scottish Screen came to the rescue with an outdoor location in Aberfoyle. But precautions still had to be taken and the already long filming days were further extended by having to spray the trucks with disinfectant every morning and evening. Charlie is played by Alastair Mackenzie and his co-stars include Ewan Stuart (Titanic) and Victoria Smurfit, an Irish actress (Cold Feet, Ballykissangel and The Beach.)

Berry says she wanted to make a film that was commercial and she clearly has commercial nous. Sigma's next project, a thriller called Young Adam, is a co-production starring Ewan McGregor. The lead producer is Jeremy Thomas (Crash, The Last Emperor, The Naked Lunch and Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence).

Young Adam is based on a book by 1950s Scottish beat writer Alexander Trocchi, about a canalside murder. Trocchi is reputed to have been friendly with William Burroughs and was a founder of the Sigma movement, which Berry's company is named after.

'It means cosmopolitan scum,' she says, 'but we couldn't really call our company that.' Now Berry and Sigma are working with their production partners the Danish group Zentropa, home of the Dogme movies, to set up a base at Glasgow's Pacific Quay.

'Once that gets off the ground, I think more films will be made up here,' says Berry. 'We've got incredible support, and a wonderful pool of talent.'

Berry feels a lack of a filmmaking infrastructure in Scotland results in erratic grabs for spare cash, no real control over production, and no means of holding on to home-bred talent. Movies written, set and shot in Scotland are sent elsewhere to be cut, printed and marketed. Actors and directors go with the flow, and the flow goes where the work is.

'People in this business often leave Glasgow for London or America,' says Gillian Berry, who has no plans to follow them, 'but we're hoping to attract them back.' She is, she says, 'determined to make it happen here'.

Starting with that pool of Scottish talent, which the filmmaker is looking to expand, having also formed a casting company called Big Fish, designed, she says, to 'find some great, natural, untrained young actors, and hook them up with writers and directors.

"You'll see me out on a Saturday buying these kids burgers in McDonald's. I figure we'll take them out on daytrips, and then do some workshops with them, and take the performance and try to polish it and channel it into a production. That's basically the plan.'

Berry tends toward this kind of direct action. She began a filmmaking career by freelancing on student films and television movies, 'trying to get experience in different areas.

She wrote two scripts, California Sunshine and Somersault -- 'just because I wanted to make movies', she says -- then went ahead and got them made. Both short films won a clutch of awards at international festival level. Berry has since been involved in the casting and production of some of the best films made in Scotland over the last five years: Peter Mullan's Orphans, Ken Loach's My Name Is Joe and Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher.

Berry picked up every skill a producer needs to manage a movie, and then had every one of them tested during the making of The Last Great Wilderness.

But the job got done, it seems -- and properly.

'It's looking fantastic,' says Berry. 'It's compelling and atmospheric and we're very excited about it.' Beyond that, the company has two new films to work on and beyond that, a role in creating that elusive Scottish film industry.

'We want to see a completely self-sufficient industry in Scotland,' says Berry, 'and it's just about to happen.'