Britain loves film; Britain hates film. Our cinemas have always been flooded with US imports, our national film theatre squats like a gleaming toad beneath Waterloo Bridge and now our premiere film festival in Edinburgh has decided to relocate from its traditional August slot to one in June.

In many respects a bold move, moving an established arts event without a pressing reason might signify renewal and growth: an urge to break with the past and do something innovative. And perhaps this will happen. The big problem with the Edinburgh Film Festival has always been that there is so much going on in Edinburgh in August with all the other arts festivals, lorded over in the media by the sinuous Fringe Festival. A move might well mean a more committed audience who are there for the films only and a little more breathing space in a media which hasn’t yet broken up for the silly season. Yet perversely such a move might mean bad news for British films.

Edinburgh holds the UK’s major competition for British films. The Michael Powell Award for best British film makes the festival the key festival for those fascinated by that most bewildered of beasts – British film. The concurrent industry events also make it worth while for people in the UK film industry. Three months after the essential festival on the calendar, the Cannes Film Festival, an August jaunt to Edinburgh is nicely spaced for busy professionals’ schedules plus if the films are bad there’s always lots going on at the other festivals.

Moving Edinburgh to June instantly puts pressure on all those film people. How badly do they want to come? Being less than a month after the biggest binge on the film calendar will probably mean that the film people who do come will be looking for detox. Or like office workers after a night on the town they might not come at all. Going to an industry event immediately after the essential one will only really be for enthusiasts. And the one the one thing British film needs is more cheerleaders.

The other knock on for our domestic cinema is that a late summer slot for a UK festival perfectly positions it to show all the upcoming British films. Tucked away from the US summer blockbusters our own films currently prefer to emerge in the autumn or winter. A debut at Edinburgh with the chance of winning a prize was perfect. This was exactly what happened to Paul Andrew William’s debut London to Brighton which went on to win a BAFTA and more importantly an audience.

Moving the Edinburgh Film Festival to June cripples the competitive exhibition of British film. Any big British film will go to Cannes given half the chance; Edinburgh will get the rejects. Any other hopeful domestic film will currently aim for an autumn film festival world premiere before a winter release, safe from the summer Blockbuster season.

As for the rest of the festival – this all comes down to the programming. Putting themselves ahead of the other larger UK film festivals will give Edinburgh a better choice of the films doing the rounds at the expense of missing out on Cannes: a mixed blessing given the hype. But to really stand out a film festival needs to do something different. What has Edinburgh done in recent years that has truly stood out? Apart from the British films that is….

Here’s an old post from June 2007. What I can say is that since this was written I visted the NFT and was impressed by what they did with it but at present the library’s future is still uncertain. Which is the bigger issue…

Yikes!

First they spend loads of money re-vamping the hole that is the National Film Theatre underneath Waterloo Bridge then the repercussions of a funding freeze have started to hit home with the BFI proposing to export its publishing arm out to an independent partner (note the swipe at the “philistine and commercially oriented” Film Council here). Exactly how this partner might be is a cause of considerable concern. Read the rest of this entry »

The announcement that Blockbuster US has decided to go with Blu-Ray for the next generation DVD format might seem at face value as the decisive cavalry charge in the war.

Don’t believe it. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD (the rival format) represent two different philosophies in home entertainment. HD-DVD may be on the way out to live a cult existence alongside Laserdisc and Betamax on the eBay of the future but what it represents won’t be giving up the fight anytime soon.

Sony, the main force behind Blu-Ray, wish to continue the dominance of the physical format that has dominated how most people watch film since the first days of video. Microsoft, the backers of the HD-DVD, are banking on the power of the internet to prompt a paradigm shift in how we interact with film media content. And hopefully (for them) consumers will be using Microsoft products all the way through this transition. Read the rest of this entry »