Edinburgh Film Festival – “An Eclectic Platform for Global Cinema”

 Sixty years after its humble beginning as a showcase for documentaries, the event has evolved into an eclectic platform for global cinema. It doesn't have a market, its hunt for sponsors has been a challenge, and programming pressure from other festivals has never been more intense, but the Edinburgh International Film Festival has managed to stay influential and relevant in a world of ever-multiplying movie shindigs.

Now, as the event celebrates its 60th anniversary, Edinburgh has quietly become the longest continuously running film festival in the world. Having begun in the aftermath of World War II, Edinburgh, running through Aug. 27, was able to avoid a forced break despite the fighting, unlike the Venice Film Festival and the Festival de Cannes.

Edinburgh has come a long way since its inception all those years ago as the brainchild of a movie society known as the Edinburgh Film Guild, which set up shop to showcase postwar documentaries. In a tip of the cap to the festival's non-fiction origins, this year, organizers have added an award for documentary filmmaking, as well as an extra two days to the fest's traditional 12-day lineup.

Outgoing artistic director Shane Danielsen says that while there is a palpable increase in audience interest in documentaries, Edinburgh's level of programming this year is fairly consistent with the previous five years he has spent at the helm.

Every year, the documentary section is somewhere around the 20-22 films mark," he says. "Documentaries are always key to Edinburgh, and we live in such interesting times that (audience) interest has only grown. The growth in mainstream documentaries is interesting."

While docus remain important at Edinburgh, the festival has developed into a diverse film event that screens everything from experimental films to feature-length animation and shorts. Such evolution is the key to survival in a world of burgeoning film festivals.

And like at film fests around the world, the search for corporate sponsors hasn't been easy. Festival organizers were hit hard at the end of 2003, when a contract with FilmFour, the event's headline sponsor, came to an end.

hile that left a sizable gap in the fest's funding, it had been anticipated by the event's board, guided by the watchful eye of Edinburgh managing director Ginnie Atkinson.

"We're competing with 16 other festivals in Edinburgh alone," says Atkinson, who notes that corporate sponsorship for such an event is extremely complicated.

The team quickly shifted, putting together a tapestry of topline festival partners led by assurance giant Standard Life, as well as movie theater operator Cineworld Cinemas and spirits-maker the Famous Grouse.

"For the last seven years, the film festival gathered around 45% of income from sponsorship, which is something that is simply not achievable now in the current economic climate," Atkinson says. "The normal balance for arts events is between 30% and 35% from sponsorship, with the rest from other funders, which is something we have achieved for the last two years."

The festival sells an average of 70% of its venue's capacity in tickets to the paying public -- high by festival standards, reassuring partners that they are backing a winner.

Full report published in The Hollywood Reporter

DANIELSEN'S DEPARTURE INTERVIEW

Departing Director Shane Danielsen gave Hollywood Reporter's London Bureau Chief  Stuart Kemp an exit interview, of which this is a sample:

THR: Which territories, in your view, will emerge over the next five years as the most exciting prospects for birthing great movies?
Danielsen: For the last few years, South Korea and Argentina have been producing interesting movies. I would like to think that something is going to happen in Africa as digital technology kicks in. Africa is one of the few regions around the world where the availability of low-cost equipment can actually make an aesthetic difference, I think.

THR: So, is there a plethora of rubbish-cheap films being made that you now have to plow through, or is digital filmmaking actually interesting?
Danielsen: We are seeing a whole bunch of shit. Digital has removed development, which is one of the most important facets of the filmmaking process. People think you just need to shoot everything and then chop and stick everything together in the cutting room. It is far too easy to edit and make cuts in the digital age and (then) piece something together that people think makes a film.

Read the full inteview HERE