Rebooted Edinburgh International Film Festival to stage screenings in Fringe venues

The EIFF is expected to unfold in a host of different “non-traditional” venues when it returns in August as part of a bid to make the film festival more appealing and accessible to Fringe audiences.

New director Paul Ridd said he hoped the new-look format would help bring together people working in different art forms and allow the festival to feature stars appearing on stage in the city.

Much of the rebooted EIFF will unfold at one of the biggest Fringe venues, Summerhall, the former vet school-tuned arts complex near the Meadows which boasts an 84-seater cinema.

Other Fringe venues are expected to feature in the line-up for the week-long film festival, which is expected to feature up to 50 premieres and special events.

However the EIFF will return to one of its earliest venues, the Cameo, in Tollcross, which will become an official “hub” for the event this August.

The “centrepiece” of the festival will be a new best feature film competition backed by the family of the late Sir Sean Connery, a long-time patron of the event.

This year’s EIFF, which will run from 15-21 August, will also feature a “midnight madness” series of late-night screenings, as well as screenings of “restored masterworks” and a short film competition.

When the new festival board, which is led by film producer Andrew Macdonald, launched a recruitment drive for a director last October they said there was “a huge opportunity for EIFF to position its talent development, industry, education and events programmes at the heart of the wider Edinburgh festivals, including the Fringe."

Mr Macdonald has pledged that the new-look EIFF will “champion the cutting edge of filmmaking and be a beacon for the industry.”

Mr Ridd told The Scotsman: “I started at the end of December and moved to Edinburgh in January. It’s been absolutely non-stop since then, but I’m honestly loving it.

"Edinburgh is such a beautiful place and it’s such an exciting festival to be involved in, with its amazing history, and being able to do something new, fresh and different with it.

“In a sense, there’s been a blank canvas as we’ve had to build everything up from scratch as an entirely new organisation, with a new team. It’s been a really frantic, but productive, few months and I’ve got a lot of great people around me.

"There’s been really strong support from the board - led by Andrew Macdonald with all the experience he brings - who are very passionate about getting the festival up and running and stable. There was already a very clear and lucid vision for what we’re trying to achieve when I joined the festival.

"It's a weird mix as I’m inheriting all this amazing history and experience, but also starting again and building up something new.

"One of the things I’ve been doing in recent months is meeting up with former directors of the festival. It’s remarkable the different perspectives and history that people like Linda Myles, Mark Cousins and Lizzie Francke bring to the table. It's quite humbling to know there are these big names who have had very distinctive visions for the festival in the past. It is up to me to have my own.”

The Connery Foundation has agreed to support a £50,000 which will be awarded to the director of one of 10 shortlisted films for best EIFF feature, which will be decided based on audience votes.

Mr Ridd said: “We’ve been building the programme around the principle of the new competition which we’ve been working on with the Connery Foundation.

"I really do think the Sean Connery Prize is a game-changer. It sends out the message that we’re looking for competitive world premieres for a very select group of movies from around the world, with the incentive of that prize and its connection with such an iconic figure.

“Having a mix of new, non-theatrical spaces with traditional cinema spaces is at the core of what we’re trying to do with the festival.

"We want it to be more integrated and embedded with everything else that is happening in Edinburgh in August, as well as having a very distinct presence."

Screen Fringe, an official delegate programme to help film and TV makers unearth new drama and comedy talent, was launched in August 2022.

Fringe Society chief executive Shona McCarthy was part of an industry taskforce which drew up a vision for a rebooted EIFF after the sudden collapse of its parent company in October 2022. A key aim was for the reborn EIFF to “attract diverse and younger audiences due to its energy, programming and proximity to the Fringe."

Mr Ridd said: “Film is a distinct, unique art form in itself. However I do think there’s a lot of cross-over between the creatives looking to make films, write films, produce films and acts in films, and creatives looking to make TV and theatre.

“The boundaries are blurring. People are diversifying what they’re doing and moving between different art forms.

"If you think about all of the talent in town in August I know there will be ways of bringing some of that talent into our events.

"But it’s also about attracting audiences who have never thought about seeing a film in a cinema before, let alone been to a film festival.

"I think there is a whole new audience that we can open up to in the wider cultural landscape.”

"Summerhall is an amazing labyrinthian cultural village, with an intersecting series of different buildings and spaces. The space we’ll be using is a really atmospheric lecture theatre which is kitted out with industry standard projection equipment. We’ll be making sure that is the case with every venue we use so that people have an amazing experience.

"We’re having lots of different conversations with different Fringe institutions and we’ll hopefully be able to speak about more of those collaborations soon.”

Summerhall chief executive Sam Gough said: “We couldn’t be more delighted that the film festival is back to full strength this August, and that we’re an integral part of it.

"There is no better home for this programme of work than here at Summerhall, in our quirky Stanley Kubrick-inspired cinema.

"During the Fringe we curate an incredible, diverse, cross-artform programme of brilliant work from all around the world and weave an integrated, unique experience, where we cross the streams of performance, dance, music visual arts and now cinema.”