Epilogue: Edinburgh Film Festival 2005

Cinematic Alka-Seltzer: Edinburgh International Film Festival 2005 – Epilogue

Still the memories linger of an impressive festival with a strong line-up of home grown films. Normally film festivals with a press pass (and often without if you like films and are prepared to spend) resemble a penny pinching approach to an all you can eat buffet, i.e. cinematic indigestion. To continue the analogy the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2005 was programmed antacid, soothing the fieriest cases of film engorgement. With a few honourable exceptions everything on offer was great.

Last year’s British selection of films were good, particularly with the emergence of films tackling 9/11 notably Yasmin and Hamburg Cell. As has been noted elsewhere it is of slight regret that Yasmin hadn’t been shown this year with the London tube bombings and the societal consequences of domestically recruited terrorists horrifyingly fresh in everybody’s minds. However as was the case with the postponing of Paradise Now at the Cambridge Film Festival in July 2005 it could have been detrimental to the release of the film by being too close to tragedy to accept general public release.

This year’s were more rounded, trumpeted in Screen International as providing ‘some cause for optimism’. Ranging from Asylum to The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael to Green Street to Mirrormask to On a Clear Day to Tsotsi, there was basically something for everyone. A clear sign of this domestic strength was that the opening and closing films, Wah-Wah and The Business, were also both British, appealing to two very different demographics. In fact I spent almost all my time watching British films and I don’t recall seeing a non-English language film – an almost unique occurrence for me at a film festival. That’s not to say that they skimmed the foreign titles out. 4 impressed me previously and I was devastated to realise that I’d missed out on The Moustache.

Tsotsi, Gavin Hood’s South African set slum drama, walked off with the Standard Life Audience Award fending off strong opposition from Serenity, the Joss Whedon film outing of his aborted television series. Tickets for the Serenity World Premiere were allegedly selling on eBay and fans were jetting in from around Europe and gratifyingly cluttering up the place hours before performances. Tsotsi also won the Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film, probably by virtue of its dramatic range and universal appeal. A film like Tsotsi that can capture City of God via Baby Boom with some real style and pathos is going to make waves especially with the Jury at a film festival. Although I didn’t see all the films up for the Michael Powell Award I personally would have opted for The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael with Tsotsi a close second. Thomas Clay’s film pulsed with a beating heart of indignation and outrage at the state of modern Britain and although brutally violent swung home its message.

Although the Edinburgh Film Festival poster this year couldn’t match last year’s red star emerging from popcorn for sheer burst out imagery, the basic marketing scheme of having iPod style coloured silhouettes conversing about film consistently amused, laying on a suitable tone for the event. My favourite said ‘I’m Spartacus’: An apt summation of the spirit of the festival.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival 2005 Awards

Standard Life Audience Award
Tsotsi (Gavin Hood)

The Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film
Tsotsi (Gavin Hood)

Guardian New Directors Award
Thumbsucker (Mike Mills)

Kodak UK Film Council Award for Best British Short Film
Hibernation (John Williams)

The McLaren Award for New British Animation
The True Story of Sawney Beane (Elizabeth Hobbs)

European Short Film Award / Prix UIP
Autobiographical Scene Number 6882 (Ruben Östlund)

Saltire Society Award for Short Documentary
Arts: The Catalyst, The Craigmillar Story (Simon Hinds)