“I hope sooner or later we can be seen as a sort of vacation spot competition,” Paul Ridd tells us of his long-term objective for the Edinburgh Worldwide Movie Competition (EIFF), as he pulls away from his work desk for a brief break. He’s chatting with us from his house within the Scottish capital and we’re just some days out from his inaugural version as competition director.
Central to his plan is a rejig of the competition’s competitors strands, which now carry the names of native and international display icons and strictly debut world premiere titles. There’s additionally a hefty money prize.
“You’ll come right here due to the power of our curation and competitions,” Ridd says.
One other key piece of his puzzle is the competition’s engagement with the {industry} by its devoted {industry} sidebar, set to relaunch this yr throughout the competition’s first weekend, Friday 16 August to Sunday 18 August.
“We need to be an area the place folks not solely need to get their movies into choice but additionally the place the press and {industry} will come and get one thing out of it that can be useful,” Ridd continues.
“That’s the vacation spot competition really feel.”
The centerpiece of this yr’s {industry} sidebar can be an onstage Q&A between filmmaker Alex Garland and Edinburgh Movie Competition chair Andrew Macdonald. Macdonald, finest referred to as the pioneering native producer behind Trainspotting, has labored with Garland for a number of a long time on titles together with The Seaside (2000), 28 Days Later (2002), Ex Machina (2014), and their latest field workplace hit Civil Struggle. The pair will focus on their careers and collaborations onstage at Edinburgh’s Tollcross Central Corridor, a 750-seat venue that can host the competition’s headline Q&A periods.
“I believe our delegates will get loads out of that dialog. One of many causes we wished to contain Andrew is as a result of we wished to maintain it industry-focused,” Ridd says of the headline gig.
Andrew Macdonald
Edinburgh Movie Competition
“Andrew is a really well-established producer having made issues like Trainspotting. However having labored along with Alex so intently through the years, I believe it’s going to make for a dialog not simply in regards to the content material of the movies but additionally the manufacturing, collaboration, and all of the issues which might be central to our concepts.”
Ridd says it was “tough to pin down” Garland who’s an enigma amongst up to date filmmakers. The 28 Days Later author has no verifiable on-line presence (even Martin Scorsese is on Instagram), and he’s not often a fixture on the competition circuit regardless of directing 4 movies within the final decade.
“It went all the way down to the wire to safe him,” Ridd says. “His schedule is loopy, engaged on 28 Days Later and the opposite movie he’s co-directing.”
Garland is co-directing Warfare, a highly-guarded A24 challenge, with Ray Mendoza. The movie is about to star Noah Centineo, Taylor John Smith, Adain Bradley, Michael Gandolfini, Henrique Zaga, and Evan Holtzman.
Different headline Q&A periods embody talks with Thelma Schoonmaker and Gaspar Noé. The pair may even current movies to the EIFF viewers. Noé will introduce a screening of Dario Argento’s Suspiria whereas Schoonmaker will introduce Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s I Know The place I’m Going!.
The remainder of the {industry} part has been stuffed out with subject-focused panels like Scrapper To Display screen, a case examine on the event and distribution of the hit 2023 characteristic Scrapper. Melanie Iredale from the equalities charity Reclaim the Body will reasonable the session. Panelists would be the movie’s director Charlotte Regan, Eva Yates (Director of BBC Movie), and Julia Trawinska (Acquisitions Supervisor at Picturehouse Leisure). The incoming director of the Edinburgh TV Competition Rowan Woods will reasonable Stand Up To The Display screen, a panel centered round filmmakers who’ve transitioned from reside efficiency and TV to filmmaking. Alex Walton, Co-Head at WME Impartial will characteristic on the panel alongside producer Afolabi Kuti. However who can be in attendance?
“We’ve acquired a extremely good and broad vary of individuals coming, everybody from rising producers and filmmakers to established execs primarily based in Scotland, the broader UK, and overseas,” Ridd says.
“We’ve been pleasantly shocked by how many individuals are coming from very totally different backgrounds. I believe it’s gonna make for some actually attention-grabbing networking periods too.”
Alongside its presence throughout the up to date {industry}, EIFF has at all times maintained a robust reference to the Academy, championing and interesting with movie principle and philosophy. That custom can be upheld this yr on the penultimate {industry} day with a tribute to Lynda Myles. Myles can be offered with the BAFTA Scotland Excellent Contribution to Movie Award at a dinner hosted by the competition.
A producer, author, curator, and critic, Myles was the primary lady to move a serious European movie competition when she led EIFF from 1973 to 1980. Her tenure is finest identified for impressed programming that popularized in-depth retrospectives of Hollywood administrators like Douglas Sirk and Raoul Walsh whom she positioned alongside the up to date American and European avant-garde. An early champion of girls filmmakers, in 1972 Myles created a collection of debates and screenings at EIFF titled The Ladies’s Occasion, targeted totally on the work of feminine filmmakers. She left Edinburgh in 1980 for the College of California, Berkeley and shortly thereafter grew to become a producer with credit together with The Commitments and Killing Me Softly.
Lynda Myles, picture courtesy of Pako Mera
“We cherished the thought of the continuity between the previous and the brand new. And Lynda was such an necessary determine within the competition’s historical past in that seventies period,” Ridd says of the tribute.
With a collection of networking cocktails and the competition’s now-famous cèilidh, the {industry} sidebar will shut with a brand new addition: a movie quiz hosted by radio presenter and critic Ali Plumb.
“I simply love the concept we will create this compelling place the place folks can uncover new work, discover expertise, and community but additionally have enjoyable,” Ridd says. “And what’s a movie occasion with out a movie quiz? We’re all nerds anyway.”
The Edinburgh Movie Competition runs from August 15 to August 21.
