Edinburgh Film Festival ‘created in London’
A Scottish film critic has claimed that the Edinburgh Film Festival is ‘created in London and shipped up to Edinburgh for ten days’ amongst claims that ‘ 90% of the people who select the films live outside Scotland and are London-based.’
On the BBC’s Sunday Show the film critic Siobhan Synnot was interviewed for what was supposed to be a softball piece about the Edinburgh Film Festival.
Synnot said: “This is the second year of Festival Director Paul Ridd … We’ve got a lot that looks interesting … we’ve got an opening film Sorry Baby a first film for the director Eva Victor and could well be one for those that enjoyed After Sun at the festival a few years ago. The closing film’s a documentary on Irvine Welsh Reality is Not Enough. Irvine Welsh a popular choice a populist subject as well because this is the third documentary about him in two years and the second the Edinburgh film festival have included in their lineup in two years, we’ve got Andrew Macdonald, Chair of the Edinburgh film festival board in conversation with his brother Kevin Macdonald, we’ve got British director Ben Wheatley along to discuss his new film, we’ve got independent film maker Andrea Arnold also making an appearance and a conversation with Nea de Costa who has just directed the sequel to 28 Days Later, which is produced by Kevin McDonald (!) …”
But she went on to say:
“Look there are also some questions though … I mean one question is why all the jobs all the jobs at the Edinburgh Film Festival as shorts programmers – and 90% of those jobs as submissions viewers for the festival have been given to people based outside Scotland this year. I mean this is a festival that gets by largely by Scottish public funding including Creative Scotland and Scottish Government Expo money – it’s a platform for Scottish filmmaking – but these jobs are also a stepping-stone for other people in the industry – and yet ALL the shorts programmers are London-based?”
Synnot continues:
“Edinburgh is trying to put out a message that there is a film party happening in August – and yet as I say 90% of the people who select the films live outside Scotland and are London-based, that’s worse than their figures last year and industry figures were saying to me last week that this is very poor optics. It suggests an Edinburgh film festival created in London and shipped up to Edinburgh for ten days, something I’m sure the festival would rebut. But also these jobs are key to young people trying to gain experience and a foot in the film ladder – appointing only one Scot as a submission viewer means that Scots missed out on valuable jobs and experience and of course, the taxes on these jobs go out of Scotland too. This is the oldest film festival in the world – you know curation is not a new idea to the Edinburgh Festival and yet and yet and yet … we have these jobs not being made available to Scots.”
You can listen to the interview here [between 1.13.43 and 1.20.40].
Of course, we asked the EIFF for a response.
Paul Ridd at the Film Festival said: “Edinburgh International Film Festival’s Programme champions a new generation of Scottish, UK and international film talent and we hugely benefit from input from Programmers and Submissions Viewers from Scotland and all around the world, including recent graduates from The University of Edinburgh and the NFTS, international film critics and film professionals. We are also proud of the brilliant work done by our Scotland-based staff across Programme Planning, Marketing, Production, Technical, Events and Guest Services. This is a team effort, placing EIFF on the global stage. We could not be prouder of our team and our Festival’s truly international reach.”
It is a disappointing response to a disappointing situation, that feeds the impression that our cultural institutions are not of us or for us or by us { see also for eg The Traitors, another Ofcom and BBC Failure for Scotland]. It’s noted that none of Siobhan Synnot’s numbers are disputed.
Her criticisms deserve a serious response, not least because, as she points out, the EIFF is the recipient of considerable Scottish public funding – in fact it was saved by Screen Scotland after its parent company, the Centre for the Moving Image, collapsed into administration in 2022.
Look for Elena Lazic in this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival programme. because Elena isn’t just London-based, she is also Paul Ridd’s longtime partner.
He gave her a job last year AND this year as a submissions viewer. He gave another position in the submissions team to her twin sister Manuela Lazic, and brought the two of them up to host screenings last year. Check their X and Facebook accounts for evidence of a very cosy relationship
Paul Ridd has never been to a Ceilidh but has been to a Ceilidh related event!.
If Scottish arts orgs keep employing folk with no understanding of, or care for the place and the people, what do you expect. Nothing reveals the parochial mind more than it’s worship of the metropolitan. The grand only appear grand because we are on our knees. Let us rise!
Just so.
Looks like Siobhan Synnot took a day off from her raging transphobia to go after the festival.
Quite funny really that she’s been relentlessly negative about the festival since its closure and the return of the Filmhouse in particular yet was happy to host a q&a for them at the weekend.
I suspect Siobhan is just rather bitter deep down. One of those old and tired journalists that have been quietly moved on and just lashing out. Sad really.
Play the ball not the player! Slagging is never a cogent argument!
Yes, and Synnot ‘s commentary follows conversations with industry insiders about Edinburgh and the collapse of the CMI. Did we ever get to the bottom of the CMI collapse?
Significantly, nobody of substance is rushing to defend the Film Festival regarding the points made on air. As Mike says, even Paul Ridd doesn’t refute that many in his team are London-based.
Q&A hosts are mostly arranged by a film’s PR or distributor and not the venue where it’s being shown, so your point about the Filmhouse is irrelevant. And she’s right to question how public money is being distributed.
Below are the names of the people who organize and run the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Guess what?
Almost all of them are Basques, as is easy enough to tell from their names, from director Rebordinos down…
Not the juries which award the prizes of course, they are ALWAYS international guests…
This is absolutely the norm for every film festival in Europe, except in neo-colonial Britain where, under the guise of diversity, those in power in the SNP hierarchy and their pals in London go about destroying the distinctiveness of a Scottish film perspective for the one event we have – make that had – in the international film calendar.
Why is San Seabstian such a great festival? Precisely because it is a Basque festival…
Director
• José Luis Rebordinos
Deputy Directors
• Maialen Beloki
• Lucía Olaciregui
Finance Director
• Amaia Elizondo
Management Committee
• Maialen Beloki
• Amaia Elizondo
• Joxean Fernández
• Lucía Olaciregui
• Ruth Pérez de Anucita
Selection Committee
• Maialen Beloki
• Quim Casas
• Roberto Cueto
• Desirée de Fez
• Joxean Fernández
• Juan G. Andrés
• Ione Hernández Sáenz
• Victor Iriarte
• Esperanza Luffiego
• Javier Martín
• Lucía Olaciregui
• Ruth Pérez de Anucita
• José Luis Rebordinos
• Ana Esperanza Redondo
Head of Industry
• Saioa Riba
Communication Manager
• Ruth Pérez de Anucita
Spanish Press
• Koro Santesteban
Foreign Press
• Gemma Beltrán
https://www.sansebastianfestival.com/organization/1/31/in
I don’t think the SNP are directly responsible for the EIFF situation, but Creative Scotland and other funders should surely ask for better return for their funding, and the SNP are responsible for the general lack of coherence and strategy about much of this. Why is any of this okay?
I think in any European country, the Minister of Culture is ultimately responsible for everything, that is to say, he is paid a salary from the public purse and receives a nice state pension to look after the national culture and, when required, pick up the phone, call the influential people in question together and find solutions to problem which arise…
But that is what happens in European countries. What happens in neo-colonial neo-liberal Britain is that Robertson basically acts as a cheerleader for foreign investment… end of…
The Edinburgh International Film Festival was created at the same time as Cannes, the same time as Venice, and the same time as San Sebastian, within a few years give or take. Those three festivals are still the big film festivals on the international calendar.
The legacy of the EIFF has been squandered by one government after another to such an extent that the Glasgow Film Festival has more or less overtaken Edinburgh..
If you want a conclusive sign of national decline and decades long contempt for film in Scotland by the powers-that-be, look no further than the shipwreck of the EIFF…
To be fair, Angus Robertson also attends lots of receptions with drinks and canapés as well as having secret meetings with Israel’s deputy ambassador. He has a busy diary. We must not expect too much of him.
Anyway, it’s all the usual elitest stuff from the people who run the UK film industry… They don’t even pretend to be democratic…
I read not long ago “Stairway to Heaven: Rebuilding the British Film Industry” by Geoff MacNab. It’s the story of the UK industry – as opposed to its films – from the nadir year of 1984 to 2016 or so…
The book is about 250 pages long. The word Scotland appears just once in the book.
Northern Ireland and Wales, not once even. Likewise Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester…
It’s all about Dicky Attenborough calling Thatcher to get her ear, and the Oxbridge chaps calling “Gordon” to help them with tax credits etc and such like completely undemocratic, opaque and old-boys-network kind of antics…
This is public money. In a 21st century European democracy… It’s outrageous.
The UK film industry is an absolute travesty, a democratic outrage and the SNP just go along with it.. probably because they know nothing about it.
MacNab rightly points out that, while as an industry, the UK film industry may have become an economic success story – thanks mainly to all the US productions which come to shoot in the UK and qualify as British + Harry Potter + James Bond – in terms of film-makers with distinct voices, it was probably better back in the late 1980’s, certainly no worse than it is now…
It simply wouldn’t wash in Europe where they have things like Constitutions…
Indeed, Douglas. As is clear from Colin McArthur’s analysis in the essays contained in the collection ‘Cinema, Culture, Scotland’ (2024), what passes for support for film in this country remains based on the commercially-oriented, neoliberal model established by Michael Forsyth shortly before devolution. In the 25 years of the Scottish Parliament’s existence, Lab-Lib and SNP Governments have had neither the wit nor the inclination to change that.
Absolute LOL at Synnot being called a renowned critic.
Feel free to respond to the actual argument
You should ask her about attending Glasgow press screenings and leaving early without finishing the film then reviewing it on BBC Scotland days later.
This is shocking.
Many ‘Scottish’ events are often not very Scottish at all.
They may take place in Scotland – but they may be no more Scottish than a touring roadshow (eg last year’s Taylor Swift concerts).
It’s too often the case that Scotland is run by England, for England.
The Edinburgh Film Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Fringe, Book and Festival take place in Scotland, but they happen during the English school holidays – Scottish schools go back earlier while the festivals are still on, making it difficult for Scottish families to attend.
Last month’s UX Scotland conference is another example.
Sure, it took place in Edinburgh.
But it was organised by Software Acumen, based in Cambridge, England.
I wish it wasn’t necessary, but we need a Culture Minister and agency dedicated to decolonising Scotland’s culture from English domination!
There’s a retrospective of Sean Connery’s James Bond films. What more do you want?
This is a really important subject. Not just about EIFF but wider Scottish cultural and public life.
Well done to Bella bringing it to wider currency.
Two thoughts. This is the sort of issue the recent Irish Pages Scotland special should have been exploring rather than the nostalgiafest it presented. Second, what are the SNP doing culturally? 20 years in. Creative Scotland take some of the blame; Angus Robertson some more with his love of polite middle class society; but the main responsibility falls squarely on the Scottish Govt and SNP.
The main responsibility does not rest with the Scottish Government Most Arts organisations are charities with boards who appoint the employees and develop policy. These boards often lack commitment to indigenous culture either because the are not indigenous or lack respect for Scottish cultural products. Scots folk scared of being thought not diverse or cool.
Sheena Wellington——“ If they thought they ate deep fried horseshit in Islington, the arts workers in Scotland would lap it up”
If Scotland’s cultural institutions are failing us – and they frequently are – it is the responsibility of the Scottish Government to address that.
The Scottish government can make policies to ensure indigenous involvement. How are you going to get timid scots to take up the places in cultural orgs? I have created and been on cultural/education projects for 40 years. Time and again I have seen Scots folk defer to the educated middle class english voice and within a few years the new cultural leaders look around and think “Perhaps we should engage with the indigenous community” I don’t blame those folk with connections and confidence for this. They haven’t “Taken over” The Scots have stepped aside. There is still very much a Scottish cringe, particularly in the Scottish middle classes. It reminds me of the outrage in the Anglo Irish in Dublin when Playboy of the Western World was put on before the revolution, and the objections to Traditional music in the theatre in the 1950’s as being overtly Nationalistic and not encouraging diversity. Now trad musicians are the Darlings of the Irish bourgeoisie.When in the 1990’s and beyond we created Organisations dedicated to the promotion of Scots Music,Song Dance,History and language, it was the Labour party in the council that objected most strongly to our programme for the same reasons. We won through by sheer force of popular participation, and they went back to playing their ColdPlay records. (Pair souls!) Colonised peoples need en .. courage ment!
A policy on Scottish representation and understanding of culture could be part of all Scot Govt grant aid.
It would be excellent to get to the bottom of how Scotland’s cultural institutions actually work, and what exactly the role of the Scottish Minister of Culture is in the organnizational chart, because I simply don’t understand it, something which is part and parcel of the opaque nature of nearly everything public in Britain today – we’re not meant to understand it…
I suspect Stan Reeves knows something I don’t for example and he is certainly right that the Centre For The Moving Image, which ran the Filmhouse and the EIFF before going under, is registered as a charity and indeed its webpage no longer exists.
So, where is the government oversight in the faceless burueacrats / “servants of charity” who managed to run things so badly that they succeeded in bankrupting the Filmhouse?
Will we ever get the full story about how that happened? I mean, they received substantial sums of public money over the years.
Presumably some of those who ran the Centre For The Moving Image (a silly name) were actually knowledgable about film, but probably plenty others were not.
Will we ever even get to know their names?
Zero accountability, zero transparency, zero engagement with the wider film community in Edinburgh…
It’s patrician Britain in a word, a country run by “the people who know best”…
The “people who know best” and end up, presumably through contacts from Edinburgh private schools and such like, invited to join the board of an arts “charity” which receives hundreds and thousands of pounds of public money, and when things go badly, disppear, into the mist…
Carpet-baggers in all but name, the “people who know best” are the opaque managerial class who have been draining the lifesblood out of Scottish culture for 30 years, it is high time they were kicked out and a new model of arts institution based on accountability, transparency and public engagement installed…
It’s just not good enough from the SNP at all… What a huge disappointment they have been and never fail to be…
Scotland’s archaic and opaque public appointments system plays an important part in perpetuating this cultural stagnation. Scottish Ministers don’t want to be accused of appointing their pals to public bodies, so they leave the process of drafting role specifications, selecting cadidates and conducting interviews largely in the hands of senior civil servants, giving them considerable power. The senior civil servants tend to favour people they regard as ‘safe’ and ‘establishment’, with similar class backgrounds to their own, hence the preponderance of lawyers, accountants, retired civil servants, clapped-out bankers, and sundry other nonentities on the Boards of Scotland’s public bodies.
But are quangos the same thing as public appointments?
The people who were on the board of The Centre for the Moving Image aren’t public appointments in any case, they weren’t on a salary. If they were, they would be expected to be transparent and provide strict accountability.
What actually was the process with The Centre for the Moving Image?It delcares itself insolvent, okay, so how is the brand of the EIFF transferred to the people who are now in charge of the EIFF?
The main figure on the board of the EIFF is Andrew MacDonald, who is a well-known film producer.
From Andrew’s point of view, he probably thinks he is doing Edinburgh and Scotland a favour by keeping the EIFF going. He’s not a festival administrator, he’s a film producer, and he was drafted in as I understand it, to scramble together the EIFF in extremis when the Filmhouse closed down overnight, with no prior warning…
I imagine they have very little money which explains why he and his brother feature so heavily in the programme’s conversations and talks…
In Europe, this would have gone out to public tender. The ministry of culture would have said, we want to run a festival of a certain size over five years, send me your bids and your proposals. That hasn’t happened here as I understand it…
We are talking about Scotland’s only international annual premier film event… Where is Angus Robertson in all of this?
The only conclusion that you can come to is that they want to turn everything into a charity, except wheeling and dealing, crony spiv capitalism…
The whole charity thing is a cop out and part of Margaret Thatcher’s stated plan to gut the welfare state..
Food banks instead of unemployment benefit, charity shops littering our high streets like a plague where once there were local shops and businesses, sacrificed to the supermarkets without so much as a murmur of protest, and charity arts quangos run by “the people who know best”, instead of serious film professionals who actually know what they’re doing…
But that’s the plan: turn the whole country into a pound shop…
The first thing I would do by the way if I had any hand whatsoever in Scottish film would be to make a documentary film about the Edinburgh International Film Festival, explaining its origins (in documentary) to its heyday between 1969-1980 roughly under Lynda Miles and what happened thereafter…
Most people in Scotland won’t know anything about it, which is hardly democratic given they have been co-financing it for 70 years…
It neednt be a great documentary, but the story really ought to be told…
You need to use what you’ve got as a country, and that just hasn’t been the case with the EIFF for a long time now…
They are not. But they are part of the picture, and similar considerations apply to board appontments across Scotland’s public sphere.
People appointed to public bodies are not always salaried. They get expenses.
I agree about the approach that should have been taken to securing the future of the EIFF. The rescue looks to have been cobbled together. As I say, the processes involved are archaic and opaque. They badly need an overhaul to make them much more transparent.
Douglas – You ask “how is the brand of the EIFF transferred to the people who are now in charge of the EIFF”. A good question.
The intellectual assets in EIFF which were held by Centre For The Moving Image (CMI) were sold to Creative Scotland for £15,000 on 29th September 2022 ie a week before the company went into administration. That would have been a decision taken by the trustees of CMI. It’s not clear (to me anyway) whether bids were invited or received from any other interested parties. Equally unclear to me is where that spend appears in Creative Scotland’s 2022-23 accounts. It doesn’t show as an intangible asset, where you might expect it.
As to how the brand was subsequently transferred to the new EIFF company, I don’t know. There’s nothing obvious in that company’s published accounts to suggest that they have in fact paid good value (or even £15k) for the rights, although it might be buried in the £52k start up costs.
Either way, I would have thought that £15k undervalues 75 years of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Mark Howitt, thank you very much for that detailed information… truly staggering, and I fully concur that 15,000 is a joke amount for the EIFF trademark…
So, a faceless bunch of spivs working as a charity known as The Centre For The Moving Image, with no clue whatsoever about the film industry, probably never having visited Cannes or Venice or Berlin even once, run Scotland’s number one film venue into bankruptcy, sell the EIFF part of it back to CS for peanuts and then cut and run…
Nothing happens. No explanations other than the usual crap about challenging times etc. No questions asked.
Then the trademark is passed on presumably by C.S, the biggest faceless spiv quango of them all, to A MacDonald and co, without anyone else in Scotland gettting a say, who, like a good Glenalmond posh boy, entirely ignores indigenous Scotland when putting together his board and team and runs it from London, selling out the Scottish film industry, which he does not represent…
In terms of culture, the SNP are possibly the worst government in the whole of Europe. The most backwater town council in Spain handle its cultural affairs better…
Absolutely shocking and totally scandalous…
I googled Basque arts policy and found this;-
“No Wider Policy:
While Athletic Bilbao’s (Football Club) policy is well-known, there isn’t a broader, formal policy in the Basque Country that restricts employment based on nationality or origin in other sectors, including the arts.
Cultural Identity:
The Basque identity is strongly linked to language, culture, and a desire for self-governance. The Athletic Bilbao policy(Only employing locals) is a reflection of this strong sense of identity. ”
So how is the Basque Film Festival board full of Basques?? Because they were the first in the queue.
(Mind it does occur to me that when they leave a viewing there should be plenty of doors, because after all you wouldn’t want to put all your Basques in the one exit)
So the making the Scots Government to blame, and seeking legislation to discriminate in favour of locals in the Arts, will employ lawyers, civil servants and politicians, but does not address the central question of how to overcome the problem of getting Scots folk to stand up for themselves.
I know of processes to tackle this. Start with “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” on “Cultural Invasion” Franz Fanon and Edward Said also useful. And of Course Gramsci’s concept of ‘Cultural Hegemony”
Perhaps a first step would be to Inaugurate a “Scottish Film Festival” of work produced by Scottish citizens. (Residence and tax paying as membership. )
Go on!!!! Some of you could do that?? I’ll haud yer Jaiket To be International one has to start by being National!
Hi Stan
Well, the Basque govt has to abide by the laws of the EU, which guarantee equal rights for all EU citizens anywhere in the bloc. OK, not exactly, not equal voting rights, but if the Basque govt were to advertise a post which was limited to Basques, they would be in breach of EU law.
On the other hand, all Basque govt jobs require knowledge of Basque (or maybe not all, but almost all) and so that works as a filter in narrowing things down.
In any case, it’s not an issue at all in Spain that the Basques run the San Sebastian Int Film Festival, never have I heard it questioned so much as once in 30 years.
What would be simply bizarre is if the powers-that-be thought it a good idea to run it from Madrid, which is our case here on this thread.
I mean, everybody would protest, not just the Basques. The San Sebastian IFF is a big event, and the award ceremony is screened live on Spanish national TV. It’s the big gala moment in the year outside the Goya national film awards…
Anyway, no one in Scotland is calling for an arts policy which excludes non-Scots. Such a policy would be fiercely opposed by people like myself. What you can’t do is appoint someone who doesn’t know Scotland and just parachute them in.
It keeps happening to us, and it’s back to Alasdair Gray’s colonists and settlers essay from 2012. Settlers in Scotland should have the same rights as Scots, colonists shouldn’t.
Or, if you prefer, while it should be a prerequisite for the head of the EIFF to know well what other international festivals are like, big and small, from Cannes to Clermont, they must also have some cultural knowledge of Scotland and in this case Edinburgh.
Ultimately, the Edinburgh International Film Festival doesn’t belong to Angus Robertson or any of these quangos or management committees who run it.
It belongs to the citizens of Edinburgh, as any film festival belongs to the people of the city that hosts it, and especially the film-lovers of that city.
It’s their day to go and see the stars walk up the red carpet, or hear someone give an interesting talk on film, or discover a new director.
Film Festivals need passionate audiences. They live and die by them….
The cinema going public of Edinburgh have been treated very badly by the nameless quango, The Centre For The Moving Image, with ever worse to come by the looks of things…
What a downer for the newly reopened Filmhouse, to have aññ this hanging over the EIFF weeks before it starts…
“What would be simply bizarre is if the powers-that-be thought it a good idea to run it from Madrid, which is our case here on this thread.
I mean, everybody would protest, not just the Basques.”
Makes my point. No protests in Scotland over the EIFF being run from London. Why do they get away with it? Because they can, as Scots folk are not gaging for the responsibility as the Barques obviously are . I remember Alasdair Grays Intervention. How do you tell a settler from a colonist? Much safer is the concept of the citizen being a settler who is permanently resident and pays tax in this country.
I was researching an arts organisation board today. Of 10, 4 are Scots and then they are the only 4 with direct participative experience of the art form in question. Why might that be?
Well, maybe there will be protests now, Stan, I don’t know, the opaque way the whole process we have been discussing on this thread has unfolded means most people, and even film people, aren’t exactly sure what happened because no one in CS or elsewhere has actually bothered to explain the situation.
I have now Googled it and according to Variety, the film trade magazine, Creative Scotland hired Andrew MacDonald to run the Edinburgh International FIlm Festival, despite MacDonald having a zero track-record in running films festivals, and MacDonald in turn has hired an acqusitions exec, Paul Ridd, who also has zero track record of running a film festival, to run our only international premiere film event of the year, which is a public event…
MacDonald is coming up to give another talk this year at the EIFF just like he did last year, as if there weren’t about another dozen Scottish film producers, young and old, who could have made a contribution and connected with Edinburgh audiences. Maybe we should just call it the Andrew MacDonald show…
MacDonald is famous in the film industry, a) for producing Trainspotting and b) being one of the three lucky recipients of the mega lottery franchises with his company DNA about 20 years ago and thereafter not producing very much at all…
As for Franz Fanon, the people who ought to read “Black Skin, White Masks” are the leadership of the SNP.
They fail to understand that culture mediates the way we see the world, it is the prism through which we interpret the world. If you don’t take Scottish culture seriously and constantly defer to our English overlords and masters, then don’t expect to win independence…
In short, and as a final comment, the EIFF is yet another Creative Scotland fck up or sell out if you prefer…
Credit to Siobhan Synnot for raising the original issue, Bella for reporting on it, and the contributors above for their reveals on the events of the past few years.
But why has this not been better covered in the media? The Ferret / Disclosure / Scotcast etc should be investigating.
The Scottish Government should set up a review (not run from London!) to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.
What is there to investigate, Gavin? The Centre for the Moving Image went tits up, as far as I know, there has been no suggestion of anything dodgy about it.
What I found unacceptable was the suddenness of it, and the fact that they didn’t try and launch a campaign to save the EFH from closing, and that they offered no more of a couple of lines by way of explanation before buggering off into obscurity again.
Not much earlier, a year or two before, they had been talking about building a new cinema at Fountainbridge as I recall it.
The next thing we know, it’s all boarded up and we’re all being asked to chip in for a renovated EFH, which I did.
The EIFF contingent of the CFTMI think that saving the EIFF is more important than saving the cinema is the gen I heard.
The EIFF people think, like the former owners of a certain football club who play in Glasgow that, even if they are technically bankrupt, the world just cannot cope without their existence and the EIFF must be saved at all costs as “the world’s oldest festival” (which it isn’t by the way, Cannes is older and much, much bigger).
Enter the white knight Andrew MacDonald onto the scene to cobble something together and save some face at least with a reduced version of the EIFF for a couple of years…
As the EIFF has been unable to take place except in a reduced format without the central venue of the EFH, I had laboured under the misapprehension that MacDonald was there on a stop-gap temporary basis and might in fact be owed some gratitude for such a thankless task.
But no. He has a team of high powered film executives gathered around him on the board including a top ranking executive of Netflix, the sworn enemies of theatrical distribution, and whose mission is to kill as many cinema screens as possible, and a fellow from a US multinational, Disney I think. People who know nothing whatsoever about Scotland and quite possibly have never even set foot in the country.
But if, as reported in Variety, CS hired MacDonald, they are surely the ones to blame here. And the problem with the CS executives is that they know nothing about Scottish culture either…
Film producers shouldn’t be running film festivals because they will nakedly pursue their own selfish self-interest, as MacDonald clearly is doing here, quite possibly in terms of the line-up too.
For example, we now have a Thelma Shoonmaker Award.
Thelma Shoonmaker, a highly respected editor, is the widow of the English director Michael Powell, who was one half of the film-making partneriship which was Powell and Pressburger…
And as we all know to our cost – oh yes, we do because he never shuts up about it – Andrew MacDonald is the grandson of Emeric Pressuburger…
Which says it all…
PS: The EIFF should have been allowed to go under along with The Centre For The Moving Image and not have been rescued. It has been a long and painful decline. It’s time had long since come and Edinburgh has too many things on anyway.
Big name brands, banks, shops, institutions much more illustrious than the EIFF disppear from the world every other day.
The money should then have been spent beefing up the Glasgow Film Festival, which is a success story, the team running it have done a fantastic job and really put Glasgow on the map. Hats off to them!!!
The rest of the money should have been used to establish a small film festival festival in Aberdeen or Dundee or Inverness or Perth, somewhere outside the central belt… where there must be plenty of film lovers too…
Anyway, the fact of the matter is that there is a clear and very obvious conflict of interest in a producer of MacDonald’s clout heading the board of a festival as (supposedly) as big as the EIFF. It doesn’t happen usually, I can’t think of another case like it.
Who made this crazy, ill-informed decision? I have leapt to the conclusion that it was Creative Scotland, who can only have officially been the contracting party, but there is another player involved here too: The British Film Institute, co-sponsor of the EIFF.
Might they have called the shots here, leaving the CS executives in the role of mere patsies? I wouldn’t be surprised…
Ultimately, the EIFF could never be allowed to go under, for political reasons. The EIFF is the lynchpin event in the calendar which gives some credence to the idea that there is a “British” film industry. It’s the event the BFI execs come up to Scotland from London to attend, along with a sprinkling of journalists and some execs from UK distributors…
So, that’s why it had to be saved…
As for audiences outside the central belt, it’s not fair, there really ought to be an annual film festival beyond the M8…
Another factor, which isn’t being mentioned enough, are Nu EIFF’s ties to Picturehouse: Paul Ridd’s longtime former employers prior to taking up his role with EIFF. It might go some way to explaining why the lovely but wholly unsuitable Cameo was used a hub last year. Understandable since FH was closed but not a large enough space outside of screen one and that was evident if you attended anything there last year and were unfortunate enough to watch a film in screens two or three. There were better options available, which had been used in the ‘emergency years’ prior to that (Everyman, Vue) but strange that the Cameo rose to prominence the first year Ridd was in position.
And the prominence of Picturehouse remains this year with events in the programme like London-based Picturehouse employee Sam Clements being brought up to host a live podcast rather than, say, a podcast with local relevance.
As noted above, it’s also strange that two of the top team of programmers Ridd mentions include his London-based partner Elena Lazic (who also happens to be on the staff of MUBI, a noted film distributor with films in the festival) and her twin sister, Manuela Lazic. Who both also hosted events for EIFF last year.
I think questions need to be asked — and answered — about hiring practices and nepotism considering it’s accessing public funds. It’s sad many of these concerns seem so blithely shushed away because they’re the CS-appointed supposed saviours of EIFF. As someone in a comment above says, why is no one like The Ferret or a broadsheet Arts Editors investigating this whole situation?
In terms of why Arts Editors aren’t reporting on or investigating this, I suspect its because we suffer from what in football was called ‘Succulent Lamb Journalism’ after David Murray would wine and dine the journos – ie the sports journalists – and the arts journalists are too close to the Directors and Producers
I doubt they need to dish out any lamb, sheer indifference is probably enough…
Anyway, my hunch is that I am onto something with this idea that the BFI took advantage of a crisis to wrestle control of the EIF away from CS through the figure of MacDonald, in a way not entirely dissimilar to the Anschluss of 1707 itself…
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You know why? Cause if you talk to London film people at the EIFF, you quickly come to realize that they actually think the EIFF is theirs. They dont think it’s a Scottish film festival, they think it’s a British festival being held in Edinburgh, which is virtually England these days anyway…
What about Irvine? Is he going to go along with this shit and attend?
Whilst I agree totally that the festival should be run by people in Scotland, not from London, it is actually true that it is a British film festival held in Edinburgh and always has been. It was first set up by John Grierson a key figure in the British Documentary Film Movement and has always had a wide international focus. In essence, unless a film festival has a specifically Scottish remit and focus (or other elsewhere, other nation) it is by default a British festival, like it or not.
Along with Grierson, Norman Wilson, one of the founders of the Edinburgh Film Guild was instrumental in starting the EIFF and was the Festival’s driving force for many years. Wilson had a background in publishing and for several years in the 1930s produced Cinema Quarterly before it was acquired by Grierson.
Wilson also founded the influential Ramsay Head Press publishing house. “Slightly Mad and Full of Danger” by Forsyth Hardy is a history of the EIFF (up to 1992) published by Ramsay Head and well worth reading.
Thanks Mark. Have read a fair bit of Hardy’s stuff but not this. I know a lot more about Grierson but mainly his documentary work / leadership / writing. What I do know is that the EIFF was originally a documentary festival. Murray Grigor’s later leadership is also indicative. I met Murray a few years ago and he gave me some of his films which are hard to get hold of. I loved some of them – such a neglected figure, something I think is a general problem in Scotland – neglect of those who should be lauded. I can say the same about some Scottish composers like Iain Hamilton. This is symptomatic.
The EIFF was set up by Norman Wilson and Forsyth Hardy under the sway of Grierson, but not by Grierson himself as I understand it. Forsyth Hardy would go on to write Grierson’s biography.
As for its nature, it is clearly an international festival as opposed to either a British or Scottish one, though in the most banal sense, it is both those things too.
Anyway, it was always run from Edinburgh. I am seriously shocked they think they can get away with doing it long distance from London, 30 years after devolution.
I always had a good opinion of Andrew MacDonald, and just can’t quite believe he thinks it acceptable to leave his grubby paws all over the festival like he has done. He obviously thinks he is more important than the festival…
As for Grierson and the documentary tradition, you might have thought he would have inspired some Scottish film-maker of recent times, but as far as I know, no one has claimed his legacy or sought to further – or indeed critique – his work through film…
It points to an amnesic film culture…
And the there is the huge Films of Scotland output: totally forgotten (admittedly a lot is forgettable, but by no means all). There is an old compilation tribute to Grierson narrated by Hitchcock that was shown on STV in the last 60s that is excellent but only in B&W and I offered to do a new version with colour clips (all can be gleaned from the released films) to the NLS. They liked the idea but said there would be little interest and no money. I also did a talk at the NLS on Eddie McConnell which was well received . . . by the 15 people there.
Exactly, Niemand, another neglected legacy, which a well-run EIFF might have done something to remedy, and indeed, you yourself might have taken part with a contribution.
Instead, we get the Thelma Shoonmaker Award, a great editor (Scorsese’s for starters) but with no discernible relationship to Scotland whatsoever, except through MacDonald himself. It’s not serious and in fact it’s downright embarrassing, for Shoonmaker herself too, who must be fairly mystified why Edinburgh would want to honour her thus… It just doesn’t resonate…
It’s a good thread this, and heartening to be talking about film in Scotland, there is so much to do going forward and still to be done from the past…
As for Grierson, he must have been an incredibly magnetic figure, he seems to have aroused outright devotion in people, disciples almost.
My view is that quite possibly he, and his documentary cause, were the last thing a Scotland still trying to shake off the hangover of Calvinism needed and that Margaret Tait’s more poetic and quirky view of the world was the better path.
If I recall rightly, Grierson gave Tait short shrift…
I think Grierson could also be easily hated Douglas! I asked Grigor what he was really like (despite much research, I still felt I did know the man, maybe could never get the measure of him) as he had known him for years. He said he was basically a good man but said some awful things at times and thus pissed people off. He certainly had some strange views, and could be a terrible drunk.
He was also contradictory – at first pushing the poetic documentary line, then saying no, we need realism and less ‘art’, then towards the end of his life saying he wished he had gone more with the poetry. This is wise in the sense that it is the poetic films he encouraged and promoted that people remember today, and rightly so. The STV piece in 1968 is very poetic – Grierson removed all the commentaries from the lengthy film clips depicted (Seawards The Great Ships, The Heart of Scotland, The Big Mill etc) and re-edits them to emphasise the aesthetic. It works wonderfully. (even at the time, the commentaries were criticised as being cliched and overly verbose).
As for Tait, I admit I do not know much of her. I looked through all the books I have on British and Scottish documentary and it is noticeable how little she features. But the one reference in relation to Grierson is from Hardy’s ‘Scotland in Film’ (1990), in which he says that he remembers watching some of Tait’s films about Orkney with her and Grierson in Edinburgh, he made ‘helpful and encouraging’ comments. He notes that Tait would have been inspired by the ‘poetic line’ started by Grierson and others. Hardy however is a bit of a hagiographer of Grierson.
Thanks Niemand, and yes, when I mentioned that Grierson seems to have elicited something like devotion, I was thinking about Forsyth Hardy, though I haven’t read the biography, only his book Film In Scotland. I agree with you about Murray Grigor too, who deserves far more attention, or even just an avaialable DVD set of his work, which I have tried – and failed – to find.
Ultimately, to have a strong national film industry, you need certain things, a certain infrastructure: a national filmotech, a monthly, or even quarterly film magazine, a regular review section in the newspapers, more film festivals, and, ultimately, film education at school.
As things stands, film exists in Scotland more or less to the extent that it forms part of the Anglosphere. Most of our best directors get fed up trying to make Scottish projects and head for the USA: Lynne Ramsay, David MacKenzie and now John MacLean. Market driven films with A level casts or B+ casts….
But where are our artistic directors? Where are the film-makers referencing Jean Renoir, of Roberto Rossellini, or Luis Buñuel or Tarkovski? Where are our directors interested in the image and the language of film? We really don’t have any, because, like a road diversion, everything is encouraged to flow through the “market” and that ultimately means, in the final instance, the USA…
The Spanish monthly film magazine, Caiman, Cuadernos de Cine, in its July/August edition, invited the young Catalan director Carla Simón (SUMMER OF 93) to take the reins and make her own edition. Carla used it to ask contemporary directors to pick one image and write something about it, and so the magazine features writing by Bertrand Bonello, Ira Sachs, Christian Petzold, Laura Citarella, Maren Ade, Miguel Gomes, Matías Piñero, Mia Hansen-Love, Alice Rohrwacher, Carla Simón, Radu Jude and Elena Lopez Riera, to mention only about half those featured…
Clearly, if you don’t have a vehicle to talk about contemporary cinema, the tendency will be to look to America and London, but we don’t have the budgets to make the films they make there… so we’re like an auxilliary leg of the anglo-american empire, instead of a European film industry in dialogue with film-makers across the world…
MacDonald’s appointment and version of the EIFF is, I am afraid, precisely the wrong direction to the one we need to move towards…
PS: Of course, we do have Sight&Sound but, as Irvine Welsh noted about the Booker Prize, there is a kind of post-colonial, post-imperial flavour to it, and it is utterly, and almost entirely London-centric, so that you get a bit fed up of it.
When you look at the films made by, say, contemporary Argentinean directors – in a permament financial crisis and with less money than Scotland – like Laura Citarella and her mentor, Mariano Llinás, you can see it isn’t a money problem we have. TRENQUE LAUQEN, by the former, and EXTRAORDINARY STORIES, by the latter, are films made with a few hundred thousand dollars… both brilliant films….
Thanks Douglas, some excellent thoughts and info there.
My own feeling is that ultimately it is not about the money, especially in this day and age (digital tools enable ‘no-budget’ filmmaking at the very least as a start), it is something else – a kind of pessimistic inertia and lack of ambition plus a stifling environment where funding is available – far too many hoops which potentially skew output away from the core of Scotland and thus the majority. If you think about Tait’s Orkney series – who would do something like that today without having to bring in some angle that would tick a funder’s box?
Not that one should be naive – even the best of the Films of Scotland stuff was deeply compromised by its commercial sponsorship. But you have to accept compromises and get on with it regardless, and in my view, avoid too much concern with wider political context – everyone seems to be looking over their shoulders trying to ensure they address certain societal zeitgeisty issues. This can kill creativity and innovation. Get lost in the art of it as best you can – stick to a creative vision.
To add, and I am convinced that it is the art of that survives, not the politics of the day. This is proven by the stuff we still think has value today. That is not to say aesthetics should necessarily dominate as one makes films for now, not posterity, but if you forget the art, your film will likely also be forgotten.
We have never really had a film industry with solid foundations in Scotland, we have had purple patches so to speak, when MacKenzie and Ramsay and that generation broke through, but all it has led to is their working in America and one or two others becoming respected directors of high-end tv in London… what might things have looked like if they had made their last 3 or 4 films in Scotland?
There is no reason we should not have a vibrant film sector in Scotland. We probably have more money for film than Iran, Argentina, Romania and Portugal put together, yet we have nowhere near their presence on the prestigious festival circuit… because we’re not plugged into the trends in world cinema…
We live in neo-liberal, Thatcherite Britain where, in the film industry, a kind of vague, bland, horrible corporate culture holds sway and the USA is really the only reference.
I dont think it really matters who is in charge, they (Screen Scotland) will always do inexplicable things like produce “This Is England” with Martin Scorsese on the films of Powell and Pressburger.
What does it have to do with Scotland? Nothing. Will Marty produce a Scottish director in turn? I doubt it…
Why are we backing these things? The cringe. Or maybe just vanity. Anyway, we will never know, cause there is zero accountability and no transparency…
Why was the EIFF trsdemark not returned on the liquidation of the CFTMI to the Efinburgh Film Guild from whence it came?
How could CS just bestow it on Andrew MacDonald – or anyone – without some kind of public process?
Amyway serious about working in film can only pack their bags and leave the country in such a rotten, opaque, venal and mediocre set-up as we have for film in Scotland…
MADE IN ENGLAND is the Scorsese narrated film on Powell and Pressburger, directed by David Hinton and backed by Screen Scotland, not This Is England as I said above, which is the Shane Meadows film…
If anyone is interested, I have gone through Screen Scotland’s web page and made a list of all of the theatrical feature films they have backed, or else are connected to because they were shot in Scotland, since about 2019, so, the last five years, excluding TV series and documentary, which are the two things Screen Scotland seem to back most…
I have put the nationality of the director in brackets, glaned from the internet, hence not infallible, and have focused only on the directors because the director is the key role on any film with even the slightest artistic pretension.
It really makes pretty bad reading, both in the sense that at least half the directors backed by Screen Scotland since 2019 are not Scottish but were born elsewhwere, but also because, with the exception of one or two pictures, the films are really pretty bad, with an over-prepondance of implausible thrillers over all other genres…. some of them don’t even sound like films, the titles I mean…
The first four films on the list haven’t been released yet
Tommy Monster – Ciaran Lyons (Scotland) – Distribution funding, undisclosed.
Grow – John MacPhail (Scotland) – 370,000
California Screamin – James MacAvoy (Scotland) – Prod funding, undisclosed.
Mission – Paul Wright (Scotland) – Prod & dev funding, undisclosed.
Then…
Spilt Milk – Brian Durnin (Ireland) – 35,000 project post funding.
Tornado – John MacLean (Scotland) – Prod & dev funding, undisclosed.
Harvest – Athina Rachel Sangari (Greece) –
The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford – Sean Robert Dunn (Scotland) – Dev & Prod funding, undisclosed.
Black Dog – George Jacques (England) –
On Falling – Laura Carreira (Portugal)
Sebastian – Miko Makela (Finland) – 500,000 prod funding
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Hope Dickson Leach (Hong Kong – England) – 350,000 Prod & Dev funding, + 15,000 distribution funding.
Kill (Betrayal) – Rodger Griffiths (N Ireland, resident in Scotland) – 500,000 prod
Falling Into Place – Aylin Tezel (Germany) – 230,000 prod
The Outrun – Nina Fingscheidt (Germany, based on Scottish novel and shot here) – 500,000 prod
Dead Shot – Guard Brothers (England) – 400,000 prod
Tetris – John Baird (Scotland) – 500,000 prod
Out of Darkness – Andrew Cumming (Scotland)
The Lost King – Stephen Frears (England)
After Sun – Charlotte Wells (Scotland)
A Very British Scandal – Anne Sewitscky (Norway)
Girl – Adura Onishile (England) – 500,000 prod
The Last Bus – Gilles MacKinnon (Scotland) – 350,000 prod
Nobody Has To Know – Bouil Lanners (Belgium) – 400,000 prod
Off the Rails – Jules Williamson (England) – dist funding
She Will – Charlotte Colbert (New York – England)
Limbo – Ben Sharrock (Scotland)
Our Ladies – Michael Caton Jones (Scotland)
Tell It To The Bees – Annabel Jankel (England) – 200,000 prod
Run – Scott Graham (Scotland) – 485,000
I haven’t included the big studio pictures which feature on the Screen Scotland webpage, from BATMAN to FRANKENSTEIN, because they are shot here but nothing else.
Charlotte Wells and Laura Carreira are the two directors whose films have performed best on the festival circuit of these 30 titles, along with Ben Sharrock’s LIMBO.
It is difficult enough for film directors to break through in most countries, but if as many as one in two films are shot by outsiders, well frankly it’s not fair on all the directors coming out of film school here…
With an average of 6 theatrical films per year over five years, that means only 3 Scottish directors are shooting a theatrical feature film per year…
That’s incredibly low…
Scotland is the country of Bill Douglas and his world-famous autobiographical trilogy… precious little sign of that here…
PS: and interesting to note there is only one director of colour among those 30 or so films, GIRL, by Adura Onashile, so that, as I mentioned above in my first post here, the diversity framework isnt working, it’s being used instead to further a bland and insipid internationalism…
The history of European cinema is the history of national directors transcending the particular and the local through the language of film with stories which audiences relate to right across the world…
But you have to start out from the particular and the local…
I recently rewatched The Flower of My Secret, the Almodovar film which marks a turning part in his career, a new maturity, the beginning of the run of films where he consolidated himself as one of the world’s greatest ditectors.
It’s a local story, shot in the neighbourhood where I lived for many years in Madrid with Almodovar’s usual Spanish crew, as Spanish as you can get. The film is an outright masterpiece, possibly his best film…
From the local, the particular and the national, you can become international which is the ultimate goal, but you are unlikely to get there with the bland and insipid cosmopolitanism Screen Scotland seem to favour….
And finally, the performance of some of these films at the box office…
I’m not going to go through the whole list, but, well SEBASTIAN, awarded 500 K sterling and directed by a London based Finish director grossed just under 130,000 USD worldwide, while DEAD SHOT, directed by the Guard Brothers – whoever they are with all due respect – hasn’t been released theatrically and yet Screen Scotland ponied up 400,000 UK pounds to help it get made…
With 900,000 UK sterling, that is a decent budget for a first feature film, which is what SS should be about, that should be their principal task, to unearth Scottish talent (which inlcudes outsiders who have settled in Scotland)…
No other country in the world extends such largess to non-native film-makers…
The Spanish made 386 films last year, probably about 160 of those films are theatrical films, the rest are documentaries or TV movie kind of fare, but you will struggle to find a single non-Spanish director on any of those pictures… it just doesn’t happen…
It’s just not how the European film industry works. Why do we have this mentality in the UK? Because of the Empire, of course…