A renowned 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 Kevin McDonald, Chair of the Edinburgh film festival board in conversation with his brother Ken McDonald, we’ve got British director Ken 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?”
“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.”
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.
