Sir Sean Connery to narrate 600 years of university history in film
The film Ever to Excel is the first cinematic account of the foundation and development of the institution and will be premiered on Wednesday in New York.
Sir Sean, film director Murray Grigor OBE, and principal and vice-chancellor of the University of St Andrews professor Louise Richardson will be in New York for the premiere.
The university is currently celebrating its 600th anniversary spanning three years from 2011 to 2013.
Sir Sean said: “When Louise Richardson invited me to collaborate on a film to mark our 600 years, as a key part of the scholarship endowment campaign, I readily agreed.
“As our film Ever to Excel began to take shape, I soon came to realise how central St Andrews is to Scotland. And how, in a very real sense, it is to America too.
“I’m proud to be an honorary graduate of a place where good is never good enough. Happy Birthday St Andrews.”
Talented graduates who star in the film also include, Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond, novelist Fay Weldon, poet Jay Parini, psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, the writer Alastair Reid, as well as executive director at The Foundation for Tomorrow Meghann Gunderman, and businessman Oliver Sarkozy.
Together with Sir Sean’s narrative their memories and recollections help to tell the remarkable story of how a university came to be founded on the East coast of Scotland in the 15th century and of those who have since left St Andrews to change the world.
The film also includes revealing interviews with staff who taught Prince William of Wales, who is a graduate of the university, as is his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge Catherine Middleton. Both attended the official launch of the university’s 600th Anniversary Campaign of which Prince William is patron.