Here's what it says about John Buchan in the biographical blurb at the front of my copy of The Thirty-Nine Steps: "He was born in Perth in 1875, the eldest son of a Free Church of Scotland minister, and educated at Hutcheson's Grammar School in Glasgow."

But hang on a moment, there's something missing there. The Buchan family moved to Fife soon after John's birth, when his father became minister at Pathhead Free Church, and his early school years, up until 1888, were spent in Kirkcaldy. That's as good a reason as any for the Kirkcaldy Film Festival to screen Alfred Hitchcock's version of The 39 Steps this Friday, particularly as the film is celebrating its 80th birthday in 2015 and Buchan's book its centenary.

I have, at this point, a confession to make: I've been the festival's Artistic Director, curating its programme of screenings, since it began in 2013. The annual three-day event is based in the Adam Smith Theatre, although this year it spills over onto a fourth day and slips out of the building, with a special screening of Jaws on Kirkcaldy's renovated waterfront tomorrow night.

There are strong historical reasons, then, for showing a film adaptation of Buchan's most famous book in the town. Aside from the anniversary celebration, there are tenuous ones for showing the Hitchcock version in particular. One of its most thrilling scenes has Robert Donat, as Richard Hannay, dangling off the Forth Rail Bridge while being pursued by both the British police and a foreign spy ring. Had Hannay's train continued along the track, it might well have passed through Kirkcaldy. The fact that the train in Buchan's book heads up the other coast to Dumfries and Galloway is neither here nor there...

Buchan's granddaughter Ursula, herself a noted garden journalist and author, will attend the Kirkcaldy Film Festival screening at 2pm on Friday and fill out some of the details of that missing bit about the Fife years in Buchan's biography. She'll also share a few anecdotes about the making of the film, about other adaptations and perhaps muse on rumours that "the 39 steps" are located somewhere in Fife.

I've heard talk that they're related to Ravenscraig Castle, on the outskirts of Kirkcaldy, but, given that in the book they're a late clue as to the hiding place of the spies, a set of steps that lead from a coastal house directly to the beach, I tend to believe that their connection to Fife is looser but no less relevant. I'm sure that, as a child growing up in the Kingdom, the first time Buchan ever saw such direct access to a beach would have been somewhere in the East Neuk, and that the idea stuck in his head for later use. Another reason for this particular festival to celebrate this particular work in this particular year.

There are other events in the 2015 programme that give Kirkcaldy Film Festival a special identity. Saturday afternoon sees a retrospective of the work of John Maclean (grew up in Tayport), consisting of two music videos he shot while a member of The Beta Band, his two short films starring Michael Fassbender, and his directorial feature debut Slow West. This event follows on neatly from 2014's retrospective of Paul Wright (grew up in Lower Largo), director of For Those In Peril.

The Fife connection continues with a Friday evening screening of Stonemouth, with both episodes of the BBC Scotland production shown together in feature film format in tribute to the late Iain Banks, while Sunday afternoon gets underway with To Kill A King, the English Civil War film I believe to be the best work of Festival patron and Glenrothes native Dougray Scott.

There's more from further afield, of course. A Friday morning screening of Psycho to form the first half of a Hitchcock double bill with The 39 Steps, should that take your fancy. A Saturday morning children's screening of Disney Pixar animation Inside Out. A Saturday evening 50th anniversary gala screening of The Ipcress File, with Michael Caine in definitive form as Harry Palmer. A Sunday afternoon dip into surreal Hungarian arthouse territory with Lisa The Fox Fairy. And acclaimed documentary Palio, Sunday's closing gala, which gets behind the scenes of Siena's famous horse race to uncover more drama and stories of corruption than any fictional film.

Just one thing to add: if you're coming to the festival from out of town, and taking the train over the Forth Rail Bridge, re-enacting a favourite scene isn't recommended. Leave that to the professionals.

The Kirkcaldy Film Festival runs from Thursday to Sunday

www.onfife.com/whats-on