Premiere treatment for Edinburgh film festival

Arts Correspondent

Tuesday 7 February 2012

EDINBURGH International Film Festival (EIFF) will host twice the number of premieres this year compared to last, its new artistic director has revealed.

BACK IN THE FRAME: New festival director Chris Fujiwara, above, has hinted at the return of the red carpet premieres, which in previous years attracted stars such as Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley, left, Richard E Grant, far left, and Sir Sean Connery, right. Main picture: Gordon Terris

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Phil Miller Arts Correspondent

Meeting the nation's press for the first time since moving to Scotland from Japan in January, the film critic and writer Chris Fujiwara said there would be between 120 and 150 features and short films this year.

The New Yorker said "pretty much all" of those films would be UK premieres, apart from retrospectives. He also signalled a "clean slate" at the festival, with an expected return to red carpet galas, if required, and the return of the Michael Powell Award for best British feature, both previous mainstays of the festival which were abandoned last year.Mr Fujiwara did not reveal any of the line-up for this year's 66th festival, but said his biggest challenge was to "build the best pos-sible programme for this year's festival, this city, and for the international film community".Last year's festival, with revamped programme with fewer premieres, no awards and no red carpet affairs, has been generally judged to have been a failure.Now the festival, which runs from June 20 to July 1, has a new team in place with Mr Fujiwara joined by Ken Hay, former chief executive of Scottish Screen, who told The Herald he will remain as chief executive until at least Christmas this year.Mr Fujiwara – whose many writings on film include a lauded book on Jerry Lewis, and who has taught and lectured on film at a number of universities and institutions – succeeded last year's director, James Mullighan. Mr Hay took over the reins of the Centre for the Moving Image, which runs the film festival, after Gavin Miller's exit.The artistic director said he was more concerned with "bridge building" than trying to resurrect the image of the festival following last year's controversies. "In a way its hard for me to address [last year], and I'm not sure how helpful it is to address that, because coming here I have the great opportunity to have a clean slate," Mr Fujiwara said."I am told I can do the kind of festival I want to do, so I haven't been too concerned about 2011. I have looked at reports and I have looked at the catalogues, but I am more concerned with my own festival. The difference between this year and last year is not something I am getting bogged down in."On red carpet galas, which were ditched last year primarily for cost reasons, he said: "Depending on the films we are going to bring, and depending on the stars, then we will be more than happy to roll out all appropriate courtesy in the form of a red carpet, or whatever it takes to make those stars happy here."For a festival of this scale, it certainly helps, because it is part of what you guys [the media] are going to be writing about, and so, that's one reason why we are focused on it, but that certainly doesn't mean we are getting away from an artistic focus or a focus on the films, which is of course the main thing."Last year, the festival only had 62 premieres, compared to 106 in 2010. "Any programme is to some extent constrained by the budget," Mr Fujiwara said. "Our budget is not yet fixed, we are still in discussions with public funders and existing or potential sponsors, so we hope to get a comfortable budget for what we would like to do."Last year it was revealed Glasgow's film festival, which begins on February 16, had attracted more people than Edinburgh's more established festival.Mr Fujiwara, who will attend the Berlin international film festival this week, believes the EIFF has a high international standing. He said: "I have just got back from the international film festival in Rotterdam, and I became very much aware there that everyone was talking about Edinburgh, and I became more aware than ever of the importance of Edinburgh in the international film world."Of course they see it differently from the way you see it here, and the precise importance varies from sales agent to sales agent, from distributor to distributor from film maker to film maker, but the strong impression I got, the conviction I got, was Edinburgh is indeed an important film festival."

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Premiere treatment for Edinburgh film festival

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