Edinburgh International Film Festival to return this summer

The Edinburgh International Film Festival is to return this summer with a scaled-down programme.

The future of the festival was put in doubt in October after the charity that runs it called in administrators.

The Centre for the Moving Image blamed rising costs and reduced trade for the closure - which also involved two cinemas and more than a hundred staff.

The 2023 edition will be staged in a week-long programme as part of the Edinburgh International Festival.

It will run from 18 to 23 August as a special one-off event, organisers Screen Scotland, Edinburgh International Festival and Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) said.

The 76th iteration of the festival will feature a reduced programme which aims to celebrate the work of both local and international filmmakers.

It will be led by EIFF's new programme director Kate Taylor, as Kristy Matheson leaves her role as creative director at the EIFF.

Ms Taylor said: "Attending first as audience member, then as film worker, my experience of Edinburgh International Film Festival has always been of a place that sparks inspiring conversations about film, and over the past few months it has been nourishing to hear the stories of many people - filmmakers, audience and industry who hold this festival dear.

"I'm excited to deliver the ideas that the team and I have been working on over the past few months and be a custodian for this year's programme, ensuring the flame of EIFF burns bright, and I can't wait to welcome audiences to enjoy the curated selection of films we'll be presenting in August."

The EIFF, the Edinburgh Filmhouse and the Belmont cinema in Aberdeen all ceased trading in October after the Centre for the Moving Image called in administrators, with 102 staff losing their jobs.

Screen Scotland, which will be the 2023 festival's primary public funder, is set to consult a working group of industry experts on setting up a stand-alone event to be held annually from August 2024.

Isabel Davis, Screen Scotland's executive director, said: "From the opening night screening of Aftersun, the 2022 edition of EIFF had a great energy and was welcomed by audiences and industry.

"We are glad to be working again with Kate, the programme team and our colleagues in the international festival to build on that success."

Francesca Hegyi, chief executive of the Edinburgh International Festival, added: "The Edinburgh International Film Festival is an important cultural touchstone in our festival city, and we are pleased to be able to support its return."

Full programme details for the film festival will be released in June.

The world was a very different place when the Edinburgh International Film Festival began in 1947.

There were few film festivals and many more cinemas and cinema goers.

The focus was on documentary making, something Scotland already had a reputation for.

The three new festivals in the capital - international, fringe and film - sat alongside each other, but offered distinct fresh voices to an audience deprived of culture through the war.

Today there are more than 5,000 film festivals staged across the world, and even long-running festivals like Edinburgh have to fight for a voice in a sprawling global market.

The pandemic also put paid to its claim of being the world's oldest continually-running film festival.

The festival has struggled before, to find finances and to find audiences, but the shutdown forced the most radical rethink in the organisation's history.

We won't know what shape the 2023 programme will take until June but it's telling that director Kristy Matheson, who led the consultation into how to revive this year's event, is moving on.

Programmer Kate Taylor, who co-led the work, will take over the 2023 event.

Screen Scotland - the festival's main funder - say they'll have discussions this summer with industry experts about how the whole festival can return from 2024.

Creative Scotland acquired the intellectual property rights to the Edinburgh International Film Festival in December, so the signs are that the whole festival will return from 2024.

But both the shape it will be in and the direction it will take is so far unclear.