THE BANFF Mountain Film Festival World Tour is back, with dates at Festival Theatre Edinburgh on January 28, as part of its biggest ever UK and Ireland tour.

The tour of films features nearly 100 screenings at over 50 venues. The short films, starring adventurers and their journeys, are selected from hundreds of films entered into the prestigious Banff Mountain Film Festival held every year in the Canadian Rockies.

The UK and Ireland tour has two different programmes of films to choose from, each lasting about 2½ hours, with free prize giveaways at each screening. The tour is part of the wider Banff World Tour, which travels the globe each year, visiting nearly 50 countries and reaching more than 400,000 people worldwide. The full film programme will be announced in early January.

banff-uk.com

THE ORGANISERS of the Colonsay Book Festival have announced the line-up of authors for the sixth annual Hebridean literary celebration. The two-day event will take place on the Isle of Colonsay in the Southern Hebrides on April 29 and 30.

This year’s programme marks the return of Alexander McCall Smith, pictured, the million-selling author who helped launch the Colonsay Book Festival in its inaugural year in 2012. Joining him are Masterchef winner and cookery writer-turned-novelist Sue Lawrence, crime writer and novelist Karen Campbell, historian and journalist James Hunter, Glasgow Makar Jim Carruth and his Edinburgh Makar counterpart Christine de Luca.

Dilly Emslie, Director of the Colonsay Book Festival, said: "The Colonsay Book Festival brings something a little bit special to the ever-growing calendar of literary events happening across the UK each year. It’s a chance to meet and mingle with some of the country’s leading writers in an unspoilt and inspiring Hebridean setting."

Tickets are on sale now, with a special early bird rate available until the end of January 2017.

colonsaybookfestival.org.uk.

PAINTINGS by Orkney artist Stanley Cursiter will be sold in Edinburgh at Lyon &Turnbull on December 8.

The paintings from two private Scottish collections include The Lace Frock, which is valued at £15,000-20,000.

Born in Orkney in 1887, Cursiter moved to Edinburgh in 1904 to become an architect. However, drawing and painting was where he excelled and he soon completed his studies at the Edinburgh College of Art.

In 1930 Cursiter took on the role of director of the National Galleries of Scotland and remained in the position until 1948 when he returned to his native Orkney with his wife Phyllis Hourston. In the same year, Cursiter was appointed as the King’s Painter and Limner, a role which he possessed until his death in 1976.

lyonandturnbull.com