George MacKay and Rosy McEwen discuss Mission, Paul Wright’s largely improvised Glasgow-set film premiering in competition at the Edinburgh Film Festival. They describe its unconventional, loosely structured production as creatively liberating, arguing that independent film offers performers room to experiment and develop beyond the constraints of larger studio productions.

MacKay plays Dylan, a young man driven to increasingly chaotic acts as he struggles with a dead-end job and loneliness, while McEwen plays his concerned sister Claire. Wright worked without a conventional script, instead using a detailed visual lookbook and scenarios from which the actors developed material; much of the film’s meaning was found during editing. MacKay previously worked with Wright on 2013’s For Those in Peril, while both actors also have major forthcoming screen projects.