GLITTERING red-carpet events, dozens of premieres and a cinematic taste of the East mark a new start for Edinburgh's international film festival as it launched its 2012 programme yesterday.
The 66th staging of the annual festival, which is attempting to bounce back from an unpopular and poorly received 2011 event, will see stars returning to gala screenings, 19 world premieres, the return of its most prestigious award and a goal of reflecting the "exceptionally vibrant state of current cinema", according to first-time artistic director Chris Fujiwara.
The festival, which runs from June 20 to July 1, is expecting at least some of the stars of its opening film Killer Joe, including Matthew McConaughey and Gina Gershon, and its closing movie, the Pixar cartoon Brave, with Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly and Emma Thompson, to attend red-carpet celebrations.
Mr Fujiwara, who has chosen the late Japanese director Shinji Somai for the festival's major retrospective, said he approached this festival with no intention of comparing it to last year's controversial, stripped-down affair.
"I would imagine that last year is on people's minds, but I try not to think about it myself and try not to be concerned with the past and last year in particular," he said.
"I think the best thing I could do is to try and do the best programme for this year, in some senses as if it was a brand new festival, at the same time taking advantage of the fact it is not a brand new festival but one with a considerable reputation built over its 65 previous years."
Ten British films, including, for the first time, documentaries, will be in the running for the Michael Powell Award, which was absent last year but returns for 2012.
Mr Fujiwara said: "We are bringing back the red carpet this year, you will see it at the opening and closing galas.
"We will have it as appropriate for other screenings, we are still working on bringing talent from other films and we are still not quite sure of the schedules yet, but there will be a large complement of talent from our premieres and competition films."
Perhaps the most high-profile screening will be that of Brave, which was announced as the closing movie of the festival by the First Minister Alex Salmond, and is subject to a heavy campaign of promotion from VisitScotland.
A major Disney promotional junket is taking place in Edinburgh today and tomorrow.
Mr Fujiwara said that he chose Brave personally for the festival line-up, and added: "We chose Brave. No-one else makes decisions for the festival. It's our programme and it's our choice whether to show any film."
The festival will showcase 121 new films in total, including 13 international premieres, and 76 UK premieres, with films from 52 countries, including strong showings from the Philippines and China.
Among the special events will be the screening of the new digital restoration of Lawrence of Arabia, marking its 50th anniversary.
Mr Fujiwara said of his film choices: "I don't know the Edinburgh audience yet, so it is a learning experience for me. I am anxious and interested to see how audiences respond.
"Obviously if I programme these films it's because I think audiences will respond to them, and I think that a festival can and should do this – which is to bring films that may initially seem unfamiliar because of nationality or of language, and then to show how these films do relate to us.
"With the Somai films, a lot of them are about young people and the problems of young people trying to find an identity, and of course adolescence is one of the most universal experiences that all arts from all over the world have talked about."
It has also been announced that the British Film Institute has given the festival £250,000 in lottery funds to contribute to the festival's core programming.
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