IT is one of the dark classics of Scottish literature, a seminal evocation of evil that has influenced writers and authors for decades, but has never been made into a major film. Now the producer of Rob Roy and The Flying Scotsman, Peter Broughan, and the director of Small Faces and Regeneration, Gillies Mackinnon, are teaming up to bring James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner to the big screen.

Tomorrow night Broughan is beginning fundraising for the £5m project at a reception at Edinburgh Castle, to be attended by Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop, Education Secretary Michael Russell and 100 "high-net-worth individuals". To raise £3.5m of the budget for the film, which he hopes to shoot next year in Edinburgh and elsewhere in Scotland, Broughan has invited the wealthy figures to the reception to interest them in privately investing in an Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), which offers income tax relief and other tax reliefs, a model of investment that is backed by the Government.