Edinburgh Film Festival director Paul Ridd on building its inaugural edition: “It’s a 77-year-old start-up” | Highlights

“Healthy intensity” is how Paul Ridd describes the final weeks of preparation for his first edition as director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), which runs from 15 to 21 August.

Ridd joined the group in late 2023 and has moved from London to Edinburgh for the job. For some, the task of resurrecting a festival with nearly 80 years of history, which was (almost) brought down by what former parent charity the Centre for the Moving Image (CMI) described as “a perfect storm” of cost issues, would be too daunting.

But the former head of acquisitions at UK distributor Picturehouse Entertainment is undeterred. “With recent history, there was an incredible time to come and be involved with a 77-year-old start-up, to build it all,” he explains.

Ridd has been involved with a number of festivals over the years, as a programming consultant for the BFI London Film Festival, Karlovy Vary and Sheffield Doc Fest, and through Picturehouse’s close ties with Sundance: London. This is his first time captaining the ship.

Their goal was to create a festival that “honored the tradition of the past but also did something new.”

Ridd, who has been a regular at EIFF throughout his career, including last year’s smaller edition under Kate Taylor, has been working closely with the festival’s board, which is comprised of Trainspotting producer Andrew Macdonald, former Disney executive Peter Rice and After Sun producer Amy Jackson. The new-look board was formed in 2023 with the support of Screen Scotland, EIFF’s main funder, to revive the festival.

Emma Boa, a long-time EIFF employee, returns as the festival’s producer. Ridd also reached out to gain pearls of wisdom from former EIFF directors, including Lynda Myles, who will be honoured at EIFF with a Bafta Scotland award for outstanding contribution to film, as well as Mark Cousins ​​and Mark Adams.

The much-loved cèilidh – a traditional Scottish and Irish dance and gathering – is making a comeback, although Ridd admits he’s never been to a cèilidh before. “I’ve been to cèilidh-adjacent events,” he confirms.

He also leaned into the “international” element of the festival’s name, programming films from countries including Iran, Mexico, India and Kazakhstan, as well as domestic productions. “We’ve been thinking a lot about both local and international audiences,” Ridd says.

“I had this feeling from day one that having this international element was really important,” he continues. “It was mutually beneficial for local cinema, for UK cinema and for Scottish cinema to have that international context. I don’t want to seal any part of the programme in any way.

“We don’t have a documentary section, we have documentaries alongside narratives. We have films from all over the world in competition, out of competition, side by side. I don’t want to isolate a specific national cinema within the program.”

In terms of innovation, Ridd has strived to “physically and existentially” align the EIFF with the wider arts festival that takes place in the Scottish city each August, the Edinburgh Fringe.

“We’re showing films in venues that are just a few minutes’ walk from all the other live performances,” he explains, with pop-up cinemas in locations at the heart of the Fringe action such as Summerhall, 50 George Square and Inspace.

For the first time, tickets to film festival events will also be available to purchase through the Fringe app.

“The dream would be that someone would come with a film to our festival, screen it, meet someone from other creative arts that are screening here, collaborate, and two or three years later we would be screening a film that came out of that collaboration,” says Ridd.

Ticket sales have been, Ridd smiles, “incredible” so far, with the opening night film The overtaking, The substance, Alien: Romulus It is Time Hunter blockbusters.

Ridd was also impressed with the performance of the competition’s titles, such as Will Seefried’s Lilies Are Not For Me and Nina Conti Sun lightare selling.

One undeniable downside to positioning the festival in August is the increased costs. There’s not a spare cupboard in Edinburgh during the month, with transport costs also inflated. The EIFF moved to June in 2008, with Kristy Matheson, now director of the BFI London Film Festival, moving it back to August for her sole edition at the helm of the EIFF, in 2022. Ridd is confident that the August slot remains “an advantage”.

“We’ve been fortunate enough to be able to invite a lot of our filmmakers to stay with us for a few nights. I would love to be able to continue to do that. I’m very aware of some of the restrictions that are in place,” he says.

“We try to make our industry offering as accessible as possible, we don’t have a huge accreditation fee for industry people, and our press accreditation is free, so we try to make that as cost-effective as possible for people. We’ve also instituted a sort of ‘pay what you can’ policy at a lot of our screenings, which means people can access a lot more films as well.”

August also puts EIFF in the same corridor as the busy autumn festival season, with Venice, Toronto, San Sebastian and, crucially, the BFI London Film Festival following suit. Was it difficult to secure films in that window?

“It was a tough proposition… Our aim is that in the future we will increasingly focus on world premiere titles in the selection, so we really feel that Edinburgh is a global launchpad for cinema and independent films, and for films from around the world. In terms of the difficulty in securing titles, having the incredibly generous support of the Connery Foundation for the award was a really useful leverage point,” explains Ridd, highlighting the £50,000 Sean Connery Award for Excellence in Feature Filmmaking, which sits alongside the £15,000 Thelma Schoonmaker Award for best short.

Around 2,500 entries were received for these awards, with 10 places in the feature film competition and eight shorts up for grabs. Titles competing for the Sean Connery Award include Daisy-May Hudson’s fiction debut Lollipop and Bryan Carberry’s AI doll documentary Smiles and kisses and you.

Out of competition, Daniel Reisinger’s unconventional romantic comedy And Mrs. starring Aisling Bea and Colin Hanks and Euros Lyn’s vampire comedy The Radleys, led by Damien Lewis, are among the world premieres.

Future plans

North American festivals like Sundance, Toronto and Telluride are inspirations for the direction Ridd would like the EIFF to take.

He describes Sundance as the “gold standard” while appreciating Telluride’s use of “non-traditional locations,” releasing films that haven’t been seen anywhere else in the world and giving a global platform to new and emerging talent as well as established filmmakers.

From Toronto, he drew inspiration for EIFF’s inaugural Midnight Madness strand. “If we can achieve half the energy that you can get at a Midnight Madness screening at TIFF, then we will have achieved something really beautiful.”

Ridd is committed to keeping the festival’s size consistent next year, which consists of 37 feature films, four standout titles, five shorts programs and a three-day industry program.

“We don’t have any ambitions to massively expand the number of films we show,” he explains. “One of the things I love about having this kind of show is that a lot of people will have seen the same films, and the conversations that are emerging will be unified. I don’t like the idea of ​​spreading ourselves too thin.”

Edinburgh Filmhouse, which used to be the festival’s hub but closed when its parent charity CMI went bust, has also risen from the ashes and is set to reopen at the turn of the year, saved by a team of former Filmhouse staff and under the ownership of local property management group Caledonian Heritable, with whom the Filmhouse team have signed a 25-year lease. Will EIFF also return to the Filmhouse?

“We’re very committed to the idea of ​​using the spaces we’ve used this year for our screenings,” says Ridd, with Edinburgh’s Picturehouse, the Cameo Cinema, this year’s film hub. “Working with the Filmhouse would be brilliant when they reopen, and expanding our footprint to include them.”

This year’s industry offering includes a robust lineup of speakers, including WME Independent Co-Head Alex Walton, Civil war filmmaker Alex Garland and BBC Film director Eva Yates, and it’s an area Ridd is keen to develop. “I would love for our industry programme to become a sort of destination industry event every year. That’s an integral part of securing more world premieres and securing bigger films.”

There is no time limit on Ridd’s contract, so he can take advantage of the space to grow with the festival. “This is the first year. We’re testing some things, we’re seeing what works, and we’ll learn from that in September.”