New film role for movie star's mother Carol McGregor is following in the footsteps of her famous son after being invited to produce nine-minute 'epic'

For the past few years Carol McGregor has worked as her son's personal assistant and provided audio descriptions of films for the blind.

She met Marc de Launay at the cast and crew screening of A Small Piece of Paradise, his short drama about a son's troubled relationship with his father and his passion for football.

Mr de Launay not only asked her to record an audio description for the film, which screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival and can be seen on Celtic's web site, but sent her several other scripts, and she agreed to act as producer on The Promise, a nine-minute epic that begins in the First World War and spans several generations and countries.

The latest batch of Scottish Screen shorts could prove a family affair. Her brother Denis Lawson, who appeared in the original Star Wars films and inspired Ewan to become an actor, has written and hopes to direct Solid Geometry, which is on the short list for Scottish Screen's other major short film scheme, New Found Land.

Mrs McGregor has set up a new company, called McDongall Films, with former Scottish Screen executive Janice Cutting, and The Promise should be its first production.

She said: ''We liked the story and Janice and I decided to go ahead and try to get it made into a short film. We applied to Scottish Screen and were delighted to be short-listed.''

Mr de Launay was inspired by the discovery of old war diaries and undelivered letters in a relative's loft, to write the story of a Scottish soldier and an Austrian, who are blown up and land in the same crater in No Man's Land during the First World War.

The Scot dies and the Austrian promises to deliver a letter to his sweetheart, though he is shellshocked. It remains undelivered until his grandson attempts to track down the recipient more than 60 years later.

''She's a very astute businesswoman, having run one of the most successful audio-description companies in the country,'' said Mr de Launay, who previously directed the Channel 4 video review programme Vids.

''She has brought a lot of experience in a business sense. Creatively again, she's very, very good, very helpful as script editor and comes up with a lot of very good ideas.''

No casting has been decided and although Mrs McGregor has not ruled out her famous son or brother, she is determined not to use their names to advance the project.

She said: ''I haven't approached either of them, because I'm not doing it on the back of anybody else.''

Mr Lawson said: ''She hasn't asked for my advice and I haven't given her any. She's very bright and she's ploughing her own furrow.''

He said it is coincidental they are both in the running for grants. The coincidences continue with the plot of Mr Lawson's film, Solid Geometry, about a young Edinburgh man who becomes obsessed with his great-great-grandfather's diaries. The descendant believes the dilettante mathematician had found a way into another dimension.

Already Mrs McGregor has her sights set on bigger things, developing several feature film projects, but refuses to go into details. ''If you enjoy something, it doesn't matter how demanding it is, you do it,'' she said.