Edinburgh International Film Festival has announced an industry programme for 2022 which will explore creativity and accessibility in its widest sense with opportunities for filmmakers, curators and critics running alongside a focussed number of exclusive events and screenings.

A case study of the company behind EIFF title Shadow, the Back to Back Theatre Company will appear in conversation to discuss their internship programme which champions supporting artists with disabilities. This event will explore Back to Back’s creative practices across theatre and offer practical advice about how the company has navigated adapting their award-winning stage play The Shadow Whose Prey The Hunter Becomes (2019) onto the screen.

The Citizens of Imagination session presented in partnership with UNBOXED will focus on the StoryTrails programme and explore how innovative use of creative technology can put communities at the heart of storytelling, giving audiences a sense of their place in the world in role in its future.

Is This a Story I can Tell? in partnership with NFTS Scotland, will discuss the considerations and responsibilities of screenwriters when telling stories that aren’t’ from their own lived experience.

In partnership with the BFI, the Meet the UK Global Screen Fund session will introduce the team and present information on international development, co-production, distribution and promotional opportunities for the UK’s independent screen sector.

EIFF’s Works in Progress returns for 2022 presenting both documentary and fiction projects. Alongside UK projects, this year EIFF’s Works in Progress will open up to include projects from the Ukraine. With support from the British Council and in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute, we will welcome four Ukrainian project teams to Edinburgh to present their work.

Fore more infortmation please and to buy passes please visit: www.edfilmfest.org.uk/press-industry

As part of this international partnership EIFF also confirms two Ukrainian feature film editions to the Special Events strand. Following on from the Oscar-nominated Atlantis, Valentyn Vasyanovych’s feature Reflection is an essential story about a Ukrainian surgeon trying to navigate ordinary life as after a period in captivity at the hands of the Russian military in Eastern Ukraine.

One Day in Ukraine. Volodymyr Tykhyy is a member of the filmmaking collective, Babylon’13 whose works ‘desire to change our society through cinema.’ For this latest film, Tykhyy offers an unvarnished vision of contemporary life, seen through the daily routines of three separate groups of citizens. Both of these films will be on sale soon! 

In addition to a focussed number of P&I screenings, delegate passes include Industry ticket bundles which offer access to EIFF public screenings. This new pass offers delegates a more flexible way to access EIFF, work around people’s schedules and allow attendees to engage with the wider cultural opportunities offered across the city. Whilst the industry offering will focus on 16th-19th August, passes are valid for screenings and events throughout the duration of the festival.

Evening Industry Networking get-togethers will be hosted from the 16th - 19th August and is kindly supported by UNBOXED, Film Hub Scotland, PRS for Music and the BFI Global Screen Fund.  

This year’s industry activity also includes an expanded range of new and continuing programmes creative to support and develop burgeoning filmmaking and curatorial talent across the film industry.

The programmes are supported both through the PLACE programme, a partnership between the Scottish Government - through Creative Scotland - the City of Edinburgh Council and the Edinburgh Festivals, the Tay Charitable Trust and also through the Scottish Government’s Festivals Expo Fund.

EIFF Talent Lab’s eleventh edition takes place from Wednesday 17th to Saturday 20th August providing emerging talent with a fantastic opportunity to learn from the world’s key film industry players over a four-day residential during Edinburgh International Film Festival. Industry guests represented at the lab this year include Altitude Films, Bankside Films, BBC Films, Cornerstone Films, Film4, MUBI and Sky.

This year’s Talent Lab Participants are:

Producers 

·       Adam Smith  

·       Alexander Handschuh  

·       Angela Gourley 

·       Danielle Goff 

·       Hugh Mann Adamson 

·       Jennifer Corcoran 

·       Lena Vurma 

·       Mark Lacey 

·       Nan Davies 

·       Natalie Louise 

·       Ryan Bennett 

·       Siobhan Fahey 

·       Sophie Freeman 

  

Writer/Directors 

·       Alia Ghafar 

·       Avril Evans 

·       Debora Bottino 

·       Dhivya Kate Chetty 

·       Jessi Gutch  

·       Leyla Josephine Coll-O'Reilly 

·       Maryam Hamidi  

·       Niamh McKeown 

·       Paul Sng  

·       Rory Power-Gibb 

·       Lucy Rose  

  

Screenwriters 

·       Dan Shaw  

·       Gillian McCormack  

·       Kefi Chadwick  

·       KT Roberts 

·       Nathalie Ahmadzadeh  

·       Rachelle Atalla  

  

Talent Lab Mentors is a new programme for 2022, running as part of the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Film Festival and offers Talent Lab programme alumni producers a mentoring partnership with international sales agents to help them develop and internationalise their slates. The selected producers are: Emilie Jouffroy, Alysia Maciejowska, Rebecca Mark Lawson, Lauren Parker, Margarita Veberaite and Dominique Webb.

EIFF Script Starter supports 8 writers who are either new to screenwriting, or who haven’t received previous funding for a film and who have an idea for a short or feature film. The selected participants will be supported in the development of their ideas into either a short film script or a feature film treatment.

This year’s Script Starter Participants are: 

·       Bircan Birol 

·       JD Stewart 

·       Kirsty McLean 

·       Nazia Mohammad 

·       Scott Lyons 

·       Louise Oliver 

·       Sophie Peacock 

·       Eleanor Capaldi 

  

EIFF & Curate-It Fellowship is a 12-week online curatorial training programme for 7 early career programmers created to develop an online programme with digital access on the Curate-It platform.

Curate-It is a training app that uses the digital space to make information about film curation more accessible. Through doing this it creates a unique platform through which people from all over the world can learn the processes of implementing their own screening event, connect and collaborate. The app will be launched during EIFF in August.

The Curate-It participants this year are: 

·       Camila Arriaga Torres 

·       Maria Wrang-Rasmussen 

·       Wacera Kamonji 

·       Chloe Charlton 

·       Indigo Korres 

·       Jennifer Pert 

·       Joanne Lee 

  

Carmen Thompson & Justine Atkinson at Curate-It have said: “The applications for the first EIFF & Curate-It Fellowship were incredibly strong and were a testament to quality of film talent working in Scotland. The seven chosen participants represent some of the best and most exciting new curatorial voices in country. We are very excited to present each of their bold and unique responses to the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Film Festival in our online programme this August.”

EIFF Curatorial Commission & Mentoring Programme is an annual commission for world class film programming. In 2022, EIFF invites 3 mid-career programmers to develop a programme for public presentation. The 1:1 mentoring programme will pair the 3 mid-career programmers with a leading professional in the field. The mentors for this edition are Awards, Publicity and Marketing Strategy /Consultant Julie La Bassiere; Senior Director of Film Programs at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Bernardo Rondeau; and Festival Director of Sydney Film Festival Nashen Moodley.

The three Curatorial Commission participants are: 

·       Invisible Women (Camilla Baier, Rachel Pronger & Lauren Clarke) 

·       Xuanlin Tham 

·       Myriam Mouflih 

 

EIFF Creative Director, Kristy Matheson has said: “Few opportunities exist for early and mid-career programmers to engage with leading figures in their field. This professional, paid opportunity aims to amplify the talents, skills, and profile of Scottish born and based talent to international markets and produce new programmes that speak to an array of audiences.”

EIFF Talent Lab is funded through the PLACE programme, a partnership between the Scottish Government through Creative Scotland, the City of Edinburgh Council and the Edinburgh Festivals and the Tay Charitable Trust.

Opening for submissions soon will be the EIFF Critical Writing Commission, an annual writing commission based on a particular theme or provocation that connects 10 mid-career Scottish born or based cultural critics to global editors and audiences

EIFF also runs the previously announced EIFF Talent Lab Connects, a 9-month programme to help support filmmaking teams with professional script editing and mentoring open to EIFF Talent Lab alumni and their collaborators to develop a feature film or serial drama project.

Holly Daniel, Festival Producer and Head of Industry at EIFF said “The move to an Edinburgh August comes with a huge number of opportunities for both the Festival and our Industry audiences. We wanted to take this moment to look at how we as a sector of creative artists can work better together to develop both our working models and access to this wonderful industry. We have a fantastically talented group of people taking part in our talent development programmes this year along with some amazing guests and mentors and we look forward to seeing the future collaborations and innovative work that will come from this creative pool”