‘Rebuilt from scratch’: how Edinburgh international film festival got back on its feet
In a ‘radical rethink’ after its crisis two years ago, the festival returns with world premieres, a new £50,000 prize and a focus on industry
The trailblazing producer Lynda Myles knows a thing of two about film festivals. The first female director of the Edinburgh international film festival (EIFF) betweeen 1973 and 1980, Myles declares herself “ecstatic” that the revived programme will take place this month.
“With so many other festivals to compete with, you have to have specificity,” says Myles, who will present a new screening showcase at the EIFF, “and it seems to me that being part of the world’s biggest arts festival offers that. After a difficult few years it was time for a radical rethink.”
The 77-year-old festival was plunged into crisis two years ago when the Centre for the Moving Image, operator of both the festival and Edinburgh’s Filmhouse cinema chain, went into administration. A scaled-down offering was incorporated into the Edinburgh international festival last year, but 2024 sees the full-throated return of the film festival that has, according to new director Paul Ridd, been “rebuilt from scratch”.
“August is such a brilliant time for the arts generally in Scotland,” says Ridd, “and this is an opportunity to reach the fringe audience as well as approach film-makers and producers.”
The timing – also well-placed on the countdown to awards season – will allow the EIFF to “integrate into the larger arts landscape”, says Ridd, as part of his ambition to create “a new iteration of the festival that is attractive to audiences locally and internationally and also industry-focused.”
The seven day programme will launch with the UK premiere of Nora Fingscheidt’s adaptation of Orcadian writer Amy Liptrot’s admired memoir The Outrun, and conclude with the world premiere of Since Yesterday, Carla J Easton and Blair Young’s history of Scotland’s girl bands.
The EIFF will screen 10 world premieres in competition for the new £50,000 Sean Connery prize for feature filmmaking excellence, as well as hosting panel discussions including an In Conversation event with controversial Argentinian director Gaspar Noé, renowned editor Thelma Schoonmaker delivering an extended intro to Powell and Pressburger’s I Know Where I’m Going!, and industry networking in cinema and fringe venues across the city.
Ridd says that a focus on industry is essential to the festival’s continuing success: “We want to create industry happenings around films, and a hub for local industry to network with internationals executives and directors.”
It is key to connect the cultural with the commercial, says Chris Young, the veteran Inbetweeners producer who mentors emerging film-makers in National Film and Television School Scotland’s Talent Lab.
“It’s about saying ‘the party is here, this is where you want to be’ and you have to do that with some effort when everything is so London-centric,” says Young.
The EIFF’s renaissance comes as film production in Scotland is booming, but film-makers based here remain equivocal about whether the headline success is benefiting homegrown talent and skills development.
“We should be pleased that so much production is happening in Scotland but I’m not sure how much of it is indigenous,” says Young.
“We can’t just sit back, having lots more Outlander. The uncomfortable truth is that as soon as you get to a certain level, the heads of department are coming from outside Scotland. That’s why the Talent Lab is important – if we don’t have teams of people in Scotland you will always end up busing them in, and we still need to build the infrastructure.”
Director and writer Hope Dickson Leach, who is developing a biopic of celebrated deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie starring Morfydd Clark, hails the ambition of this year’s festival, and hopes it forms a strong connection with the Glasgow film festival, which takes place in spring: “It’s a great way to bookend the thriving Scottish film festival ecology.”
Embedding wider success “is incredibly difficult to do when we’re a small country, a fantastic film destination, but it feels like Screen Scotland is doing all that they can.”
Challenges for film-makers are UK-wide, says Leach: “There is an enormous problem all over the UK at the moment with getting projects greenlit. The latest British Film Institute figures [for production spend] are down 70% compared to 2020, it is really slow and I worry we are seeing a return to film-making being in the hands of middle aged white men.”