A Look At The Edinburgh International Film Festival 2024

And there is only slightly over a month to go before the new and improved Edinburgh International Film Festival 2024 rolls in. 
 
As for feature-length films, there is only 37 to compare with the pre-pandemic number of 121 films in the Edinburgh Film Festival of 2019. And in how it has grown, the festival has become a week event and used to be a 12 day event. 
 
This year’s EIFF stretches into Edinburgh’s Southside to venues better known as destinations for Fringe shows: Assembly submitted a bid to expand in Edinburgh University’s theatre at 50 George Square; secondly, Inspace housed in assembly in conjunction with Monkey Barrel Comedy Club; and thirdly, Summerhall a converted veterinary school near the Meadows; and Central Hall on Lothian Road. The other long-established EIFF ‘hub’ spot in this year’s cinematic spectrum, however, is Tollcross’ Cameo cinema. 
 
It may not be the type of film festival that is expected, popularly so, but there is something that says this festival is gearing up for some action. 
 
This will be the third since the charity that orgainsed it Centre for the Moving Image went into receivership in October, 2022 that almost pulled down the film festival as well as the Filmhouse. 
 
It is also the first festival of the new EIFF board with Andrew Macdonald as a chair, new festival director Paul Rudd, and new festival producer Emma Boa. 
 
Rudd has stated that this year is when the EIFF new team can set down their stall, and then progress. 
 
Competitions 
 
In February, EIFF disclosed large amounts of money in prizes for two competitions, which will be voted on via instant vote. Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence is endowed with £50, 000 towards future projects of the winner. It must be noted that this award is under the financial sponsorship of The Sean Connery Foundation completely. 
 
The second, the Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence, has £15,000 monetary reward. Thelma Schoonmaker will be present at the Festival and present a showing of the much cherished Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell movie – I Know Where I’m Going. The maladies and dysfunctions of postmodernity depicted in MacLeans’s Francie (1945) are articulated on the Isle of Mull. 
 
Ten of these films are competing in the feature length competition and each will be screened four times through out the four partner venues of the festival (Cameo, Inspace, 50 George Square, and Summerhall). 
 
The films are Kelsey Taylor’s fairytale film made in snowy Oregon To Kill A Wolf; the Man and his large AI animated doll smiling doll caught on film by Bryan Carberry in smiles and kisses you; and the black-and-white tragi-drama with elements of Yorkshire hills made by Jack King The Ceremony. 
 
This year’s EIFF opener is Nina Conti’s surreal road movie ;Sunlight; which was previously a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe. She also has a monkey sidekick in the film with whom she has to interact and surprisingly this monkey sidekick is life size. 
 
Outside Competition 
 
Earlier, the Festival is set to start with Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun filmed in Orkney with Saoirse Ronan in the lead role. There is also a stage version of Amy Liptrot’s memoir about having to seek sobriety, which is being performed at the Edinburgh International Festival at the Churchill Theatre. 
 
The Closing Film is the previously announced World Premiere of Carla J. Easton and Blair Young’s new documentary Since Yesterday: popular music history has never featured the story of Girl Bands in Scotland as told in the documentary. 
 
Other prominent events at the current EIFF are the In Conversation with an art-house provocateur Gaspar Noé before a screening of his films such as Irreversible, Climax or Enter The Void, as well as an Argento’s cult horror movie Suspiria (1977). 
 
Lynda Myles Celebrates is a fresh and innovative new strand for special preview screening of new work set up in the freewheeling ethos of writer, academic and ex EIFF director Lynda Myles. The specified movie of the year is the Gala & Kiwi by Argentinian filmmaker Axel Cheb Terrab as Myles is going to introduce it to the viewers. 
 
There are in toto 18 World Premieres and Out of Competition presents more World and UK premieres including Sophie Fiennes’ bio-documentary on theatre makers Cheek by Jowl and Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Acting and Mark Cousins’s new doc on Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things. 
 
In the new Midnight Madness strand that showcases new, edgy, darker cinema you can find the latest from the Alien franchise, Demi Moore in a gore comedy The Substance, and a PTSD thriller created by and starring former Royal Marine commandos in Sunray: Rifleman Private Shelby Steele Gedden. 
 
“By embracing the principles of cooperation, enthusiasm and, of course, collaboration which was the beacon of this promotion, we tried to create something extraordinary out of the vision of the future actions for this significant festival appointing its range of film works vast,” Rudd noted. 
 
“From the very start, the focus has always been on the audience We cannot wait to face these formally fascinating, thematically profound and emotionally memorable movies, finding their home with us. Onward. 
 
The EIFF which has recently been reestablished is between Thursday 15th August and Wednesday 21st August.