<\/p>\n
Watch Louis Paxton\u2019s \u201cThe Incomer\u201d and you\u2019ll be struck by its intensely specific sense of place. The film, which follows two co-dependent siblings (Gayle Rankin and Grant O\u2019Rourke) who have spent their entire lives on an island in the northernmost part of Scotland, is a product of its setting. From the picturesque scenery and abandoned buildings to the unique cultural customs, it\u2019s a story that could not have been told anywhere else.<\/p>\n
When Paxton, Rankin, O\u2019Rourke, and Domnhall Gleeson (who plays the eponymous incomer who shows up to disrupt their routine) visited the IndieWire Studio<\/a> at Sundance, presented by Dropbox, the conversation quickly turned to the region\u2019s influence on the story.<\/p>\n More from IndieWire<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cMy family are from all over Scotland, but North Scotland is where my mum\u2019s from, and we used to go there when we were young. It\u2019s just a really magical place. It\u2019s very far north, you can see the Northern Lights, there\u2019s shipwrecks half in and half out of the water. Birds everywhere, windswept sky and sea. There\u2019s so much history there,\u201d Paxton said. \u201cI hadn\u2019t seen many films that were shot up there. It just feels like the end of the world, it\u2019s very magical. It\u2019s steeped in this mythology, so there\u2019s a little bit of all that in the film.\u201d<\/p>\n The writer\/director added that the isles already possessed the unique combination of beauty and decay that the story required \u2014 eliminating the need to build many new sets.<\/p>\n \u201cI just wanted to go somewhere and shoot on real locations,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s only one set that we built, the Coast Guard shed, everything else was sourced. All the abandoned houses are real abandoned houses. It does have that almost post-apocalyptic, barren vibe to it, but I also find it beautiful. I think in the film we capture the harshness of it, but also the naturalistic beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n Gleeson added that shooting in such a unique environment can enhance an actor\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s less acting [to do], because you\u2019re not pretending it\u2019s cold or it\u2019s windy. They didn\u2019t heat the sea for us, the sea was as cold as it\u2019s meant to be,\u201d Gleeson said. \u201cIt strips away some acting and lets you just connect with the people around you and concentrate on the script.\u201d<\/p>\n Gleeson also pointed out that he was attracted to the project because it portrayed the picturesque Scottish isles in a more lighthearted manner than other films, which often treat them as canvases for tragedies and epics.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I think about those landscapes, I think about serious films,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd there\u2019s something else that happens when you put comedy in a really brutal landscape, that\u2019s also beautiful. It just helped all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n Watch the full conversation with the team behind \u201cThe Incomer\u201d above.<\/p>\n Dropbox is proud to partner with IndieWire and the\u00a0Sundance<\/a>\u00a0Film Festival. In 2026, 68% of feature films premiering at Sundance used Dropbox during production. Dropbox helps filmmakers and creative teams find, organize, secure, and share the content that matters most to any project.<\/em><\/p>\n Best of IndieWire<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Indiewire’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Watch Louis Paxton\u2019s \u201cThe Incomer\u201d and you\u2019ll be struck by its intensely specific sense of place. The film, which follows two co-dependent siblings (Gayle Rankin and Grant O\u2019Rourke) who have spent their entire lives on an island in the northernmost part of Scotland, is a product of its setting. From the picturesque scenery and abandoned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2250295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[435627,353747,435623,435624,435626,435625,307248,388093,435628],"class_list":["post-2250294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-abandoned-buildings","tag-domnhall-gleeson","tag-gayle-rankin","tag-grant-orourke","tag-north-scotland","tag-picturesque-scenery","tag-scotland","tag-sense-of-place","tag-watch-louis-paxton"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\u2018The-Incomer-Team-Explains-Why-the-Isles-of-North-Scotland.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2250294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2250296,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250294\/revisions\/2250296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2250295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2250294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2250294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2250294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}