Hello. I am delighted to be running the Festival, one of the world's very best. For the last four years I've been running the international independent filmmakers networking community Shooting People, and will be full time in Edinburgh from Tuesday 8 February.

You might have read recently that we announced a radical shakeup of the way the Festival operates. That's true. For a start, I'm not the new Artistic Director; that position doesn't exist. We have invited former Festival Directors Mark Cousins and Lynda Myles, and Tilda Swinton to conceive a creative blueprint, which I will be delivering with the Festival production team led by Diane Henderson. Mark, Lynda and Tilda have conceived an overall theme of 'All That Heaven Allows'. They are inviting a series of guest curators, each of whom will be given the Festival - and Edinburgh itself - as a space in which to dream; think of what happens at London's South Bank Centre's Meltdown as an analogy, but several times across the Festival. We will be announcing the first fruits of that planning in early February.

You may also have read in that early announcement that we are doing away with red carpets, awards and juries, at least for 2011. That's true, and I can assure you that the Festival will remain an eminent showcase for the best of new work from around the world. So if you are thinking of submitting, please do so.

I've been interviewed about my new position a couple of times, and both the Scotsman and The Herald have written good, insightful pieces.

I look forward to meeting you in June.