Peter Mullan, the Cannes Film Festival and the Martin Scorsese Celtic Supporters Club

The film was directly inspired by the first half of Carla’s Song, another film by Ken Loach, also set in Glasgow, with a hard-hitting and emotion-charged script by frequent Paul Laverty, who studied law at the University of Strathclyde. In writing My Name is Joe, Laverty captured an unconventional love story against a complicated social backdrop in Ruchill, one of Glasgow’s most deprived neighbourhoods.

Screened in competition, My Name Is Joe delivered Loach’s trademark social realism with a piercing emotional charge. The film follows Joe Kavanagh, a recovering alcoholic navigating unemployment, friendships and a stumbling romance with community health worker Sarah Downie, played by Louise Goodall. Variety magazine said at the time of the release of the film: “Mullan is perfect as the twinkly-eyed Joe, whose charm conceals darker depths of despair and self-shame; as the strong-willed social worker who’s still prepared to take a chance, Goodall is equally involving.”

Ken Loach has made a habit of screening his films at Cannes, although he says he avoids “the showoffs with the big boats”. He explains that the real impact of Cannes is its “powerful” audiences and the platform it gives him to discuss, with journalists from all over the world, the thoughts and frustrations presented in his films, in this case from the perspective of north Glasgow: “If there are ideas you want to communicate, it’s the best way to do it”.

The cast and director stood out from the crowd amidst an international roster of films at the 1998 festival. Mullan was cheered by the crowd as he arrived at the prizegiving ceremony wearing a dress Gordon kilt hired from Highland Dress in Sauchiehall Street. ''It feels great to meet and shake hands with people like Robert Duvall, Martin Scorsese, and Winona Ryder,'' he said on the red carpet. He had earlier remarked ''I don't care about awards. I would not want the experience of working with Ken to be ruined by any disappointment about not getting the headmaster's approval. Working with Ken is reward enough.''

The Palme d'Or prize was awarded to Eternity and a Day by Theodoros Angelopoulos. The Grand Prize of the Jury went to Life Is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni and Best Director to John Boorman for The General. Then the jury, chaired by Martin Scorsese and featuring actress Sigourney Weaver and director Michael Winterbottom, announced Peter Mullan as the winner of the Best Actor prize.

Glasgow lifted another award that night when Maryhill film director Lynne Ramsay, was runner-up in the Palme d’Or with her film Gasman, about two children facing up to problems caused by their parents' divorce. Six weeks later she would begin work on the film Ratcatcher, set in Glasgow in 1973, that screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999.

As an unlikely coda to My Name is Joe’s adventure amidst the film industry glitterati at Cannes, Peter Mullan ended up with Martin Scorsese signing his Celtic strip. Asked last year about the encounter by Amy Irons on BBC Scotland – The Saturday Show, Mullan said: “It was tucked in my sporran. I was at the Cannes Film Festival and they gave me a prize and the head of the jury was Martin Scorsese.

“I had rolled up my Celtic top because we had a loosely named Celtic supporters club called the Martin Scorsese Celtic Supporters Club. It was a gag title for us. So anyway, I went to Cannes and thought how cool would it be for him to sign it.

“I put it in my sporran and it bust my sporran. So when I went up to collect the prize and I’m holding the bloody thing together.

“Then at the party afterwards I went up and asked him to sign it because he was by that time my pal Marty and he signed it and he said, “What is it with you guys, I’m asthmatic I hate sports” and then he and I became best buddies. I don’t know where the top is but there was one photo taken of it and it was on one of those old school little cameras. We got it printed off and I don’t know where it is.”

Have a look at the pictures below.