As someone who has attended the Edinburgh Film Festival every year for 12 successive years (including
last year for OWF) I am slightly concerned about this years programme. Its no secret that the financial cuts to the arts across the country starting with the sad demise of the UKFC has had a knock-on effect all over Britain, with a crises across the film industry. It is widely known that the festivals budget has been cut dramatically, but the behind-the-scenes drama, one suspects, doesnt end there.
Hannah McGill, artistic director for the past few years, left last year and was replaced, eventually, with
James Mullighan. At one point
Tilda Swinton, Mark Cousins and
Linda Myles were brought in to bring a bit of creativity and vision, but they have since departed amidst raised eyebrows and various explanations, all of which started It was always the intention that... Whatever the intentions, this year weve ended up with a slimmer programme and very little in the way of star-appeal. Not that thats necessarily what the Edinburgh Film Festival is about, but in the past decade I recall appearances by
Brian De Palma, Arthur Penn, George A. Romero, Sean Penn, Charlize Theron and
Kevin Smith. Last years programme at least offered one concession to popular taste:
Toy Story 3, which turned out to be the best film at last years festival. This year, the awards have been ditched along with the red carpets (I always wondered where they kept those the rest of the year). The plan is clearly to strip the festival of pretention and focus on, you know, the art of film. My instinct is that the baby has been thrown out with the bath water. The majority of the films at the festival have always been artistic; it was never a populist film festival, nor one driven, Cannes-like, by execs and distributors. The attempt to change the image has been somewhat redundant in this regard, and from the outset seems to have left the festival with less sense of direction (and more sense of behind-the-scenes panic). The Cineworld in Edinburgh, used for screenings for years, is no longer being used at all, with the majority of screenings playing in smaller art cinemas which are nicer, but have much smaller capacities. The Festival Theatre, which seats 1500, will be used for the opening night film to redress this balance.
There is, however, much to look forward to, and I will be providing Obsessed With Film with daily reviews and blogs. The opening night film is
The Guard a favourite from Sundance and Berlin (where our very own
Rob Beames praised it) starring the ever-reliable
Brendan Gleeson along with
Don Cheadle and
Mark Strong. Also of interest, and also British, are
David MacKenzies Perfect Sense, starring
Ewan McGregor and
Eva Green, and
Page Eight, starring
Bill Nighy. Nighy and McGregor will both be in attendance. David MacKenzie is a name familiar to Edinburgh Film Festival goers; his output has ranged from the excellent (Young Adam) to the ridiculous (Asylum). It is not all doom and gloom. I have already mapped out which movies I am going to see, and Ive ticked off 30. Despite my reservations (and the lack of a Pixar movie this year) I have a suspicion that the movies may, on average, be better than last years selection, despite the fact that there are fewer of them. Although British cinema has taken hard hits, I am also looking forward to
Niall MacCormicks Albatross.
Elite Squad 2, the sequel to a successful Brazilian crime movie, and
Turin Horse, from the legendary
Béla Tarr, are among the intriguing foreign-language choices.
The most reliable selection of films at the festival is almost always the documentaries: this year, I look forward to
Project Nim from
James Marsh, whose Man On Wire created buzz at Edinburgh in 2008 before going on to win Best Documentary Oscar, as well as
Bob Marley: The Making of a Legend, and
Troubadours, about the famous Troubadour Club in Hollywood during the 60s. Im always optimistic about the Film Festival, just as, no matter what my suspicions, I am always optimistic when the lights go down and a movie starts. You never know for sure what youre going to get, and thats the fun of film festivals, and also why they can grow tiresome. It just takes a run of terrible movies to put you completely off, and I have sat through some truly abysmal movies at this festival before. But despite my cynicism I really cant see it being like that this year. The rain probably ruins all those red carpets anyway.