Scotland is in desperate need of a major international film studio, the director Jason Connery has said.

Connery, the actor and director and son of Sir Sean Connery, is opening this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival with his film about golf legends Old Tom Morris and his son Tommy, Tommy's Honour, starring Peter Mullan and Jack Lowden.

Connery said the need for a large international film studio in Scotland became very clear during the shoot.

The actor and director said: "Absolutely - while we were shooting in Scotland, they were also shooting Whisky Galore! [the remake which will close the festival] and all of us were scratching around looking for space, literally in farms, or large places with out-buildings, one place was a cookery school and we built a set in there.

"Certainly, build a space.

"It's one thing to use practical sets, but it comes a time where it is just not economically viable to move the entire crew and everyone, every time you need a new location.

"To have a place for a build, would be fantastic - if there can be a place found.

"It was sort of ridiculous the places we were looking for to build our sets. I know other films have had problems."

The film had 50 different locations in a 33 day shoot and we had 35 trucks, and was shot in East Lothian and Fife.

Tommy's Honour, which opens the festival on June 15, has a personal resonance for Jason Connery.

Golf has been a major part of Connery's life, in particular as he grew up and Sir Sean was a frequent player on Scotland's golf courses.

"I have a cottage in the Borders, and I went to Gordonstoun, so I have spent a lot of time in Scotland, and every summer my dad would play in pro-celebrity golf up in Gleneagles, and I remember it being the best ten days of the year every year."

He added: "Absolutely...of course it has resonance for me. And in a simple fact, I kind of grew up on a golf course.

"My father, when not working, loved - and still does - to play golf. I have spent many, many, many hours on the golf course with him.

"Unfortunately neither he or I play as well as Old Tom or Tommy, but the wonderful thing about golf is that the whole thing about the way one walks around the golf course, it lends itself to communication and to talking about things, and it also lends itself to enormous frustration and anger."

He added: "And its one of the only games that - and my father is 86 this year and he is still playing - that the handicap system actually works.

"If my dad is taking a shot on every hole, he is very hard to beat - he is very determined and he is very good around the green.

"In that sense, we can still have really good games, and whether that is for a drink in the bar or £10, it is played to the death."

Of the film, Connery said: "To me Peter is Old Tom, and Jack has something you cannot teach, which is an innate sense of truth in things, and an empathy that bounces off the screen, and those two together as father and son - there is a couple of humdinger scenes - they really enjoy each other."

Connery said the film is not really a "golf film" but a drama about relationships.

He added: "This is a love story, a father and son love story and a man and wife love story.

"It is a Shakespearian tragedy, but what jumps out is how universal the story is about a man coming into the world and grabbing it by the scruff of the neck, and the change: the handing on of the baton and all the elements of that time, of how society deemed that you should behave, and the questions asked by the new generation."