CEO & Festival Director Statement
2024 was a unique year in the history of EIFF. A brand new organisation was established, led by a Board of industry experts and a new management team. And we delivered a completely new iteration of this vital film festival, honouring its legacy while looking firmly to the future.
Fundamentally, the Festival is all about getting films to audiences and our core strategy is to embed the Festival within the dynamic arts scene taking place throughout August in Edinburgh. In August 2024 we did just that, with a programme of screenings, special events and talks, delivered in partnership with Fringe organisations and hosted in a range of cinema and pop-up venues across the city.
The Festival worked closely with collaborators in the film world as well as other arts festivals, venues and the Fringe to deliver a festival that would feel inclusive, open and future-facing.
It was ‘Year Zero’ for the new EIFF, and we embraced its opportunities with gusto.
With the invaluable support of The Sean Connery Foundation, the Festival launched its inaugural
World Premiere features competition, a programme of ten excellent, brand new films from all over the world competing for the £50K prize, decided by audience vote. The winner, the striking UK debut The Ceremony directed by Jack King, recouped much of the film’s budget with the prize, which is testament to the power of the opportunity.
The new shorts competition, named in honour of the iconic Thelma Schoonmaker, awarded £15K to the makers of the ingenious old Hollywood pastiche Manny Wolfe, presented to director Trevor Neuhoff by Thelma herself.
It is career-changing opportunities like these which are at the heart of the new look Festival.
The focus is on supporting filmmakers, producers and everyone involved in getting films made and seen with a powerful global launch pad for their work. It is not just about one week in August. It is about nurturing a platform for filmmaking that can lead on to something meaningful, whether that’s ensuring a film has the best chance of securing future distribution or providing the opportunity for a filmmaker to encounter the producer, commissioner or financier who is going to help them get their next film made.
This is what is driving plans for the future where the two prizes will continue to be at the heart of the Festival. And this is what is driving plans for a continually developing industry programme and activity designed to support new and emerging talent as well as the wider industry.
In August, the groundwork for this was laid with a range of networking opportunities, panels and events with key executives from the world of UK and international production, distribution and exhibition. The Festival is committed to providing affordable access to industry and press to meet and mingle, to listen and learn, and to be part of the community it is working to support.
But a film festival is always fundamentally going to be about the audience and about the films. 2024 saw dozens of features, shorts programmes,
repertory films and major in person events, including illuminating conversations with guests including Gaspar Noé and Alex Garland.
We were thrilled to host the UK Premieres of box office hits The Outrun, The Substance, Sing Sing and many more, and to welcome stars like Saoirse Ronan, Kelly Macdonald and Damian Lewis to their screenings.
The Festival could not happen without the support of all of our partners and the commitment and dedication of the team. We are enormously grateful to our funders, supporters and everyone who has helped us and continues to help us reboot this beautiful Festival. Special thanks go to the public funding bodies for their tireless support and advice, to all of our brilliant industry partners who gave their resources and time so generously, to the press, to our programme and venue partners and all the different organisations and individuals we worked with to deliver a first festival we feel immensely proud of. And above all, thank you to our audiences for responding so positively and thoughtfully to our programme. Personally, I could not be more grateful or more proud of the team.
The Festival will be back later this year, running 14-20 August 2025. Please save the date and get ready for something special once again.
Paul Ridd CEO & Festival Director
The Relaunched Festival
The relaunched Edinburgh International Film Festival was heralded as a “77-year-old start up” in 2024, leveraging its history as the world’s oldest continually running film festival to bring a fresh and innovative programme of emerging and established talent and cutting edge storytelling to curious local, national and international audiences. The Festival ran from 15-20 August 2024 and was well received by audiences, industry and press.
A vital fixture in the global film festival calendar celebrating outstanding cinema in a modern, energised context, the core strategy of the revitalised Festival has been to embed within the wider cultural offering taking place in Edinburgh in August, embracing the sense of discovery, experimentation and cross-arts collaboration.
The 2024 event created unique opportunities to showcase new work with substantial cash prizes decided by audience vote, featuring newly created competitions for World Premiere features and shorts spanning all forms and genres with the £50K Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence and the £15K Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence.
The Festival hosted events and screenings with world-class names in film, including Saoirse Ronan, Thelma Schoonmaker, Kelly Macdonald, Damian Lewis, Brian Cox, Alice Lowe, Gaspar Noé, Mark Cousins, Nina Conti, Kate Dickie and Alex Garland and delivered an impactful industry programme in partnership with Fringe organisations for attending filmmakers, sales agents, buyers, commissioners and executives.
Kelly Macdonald and Damian Lewis (The Radleys)
KAZAKHSTAN IRAN TURKEY SWEDEN
“Excellent atmosphere and programming, couldn’t have been happier to see this revival”
Audience Survey
Saoirse Ronan, Amy Liptrot and Nora Fingscheidt (The Outrun)
Audience
Age 25-34 Core Audience
33% 16-34
36% 35-54
31% 55+
Geography
Gender 50% male 46% female 4% define themselves another way or preferred not to say
80% from Scotland 13% Rest of UK 5.4% Outside UK 82% of attendees rated the quality of the Festival programme Very Good or Good 74% of attendees watched 1-6 films
“Inclusive atmosphere and great use of venues around the city helped blend the film festival with fringe but also keep it separate”
Audience Survey
Alex Garland (Ex-Machina, Civil War, 28 Years Later)
World Premiere Competitions
The Festival introduced two major competitions with significant cash prizes, decided for by audience vote - The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence with an award of £50,000 and The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence with an award of £15,000.
The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence is a pioneering partnership with the Sean Connery Foundation (SCF), an organisation established in 2021 to accelerate positive change through strategic grantmaking to institutions in Scotland. Ten feature-length World Premieres were selected for Competition, with the winner decided by audience vote. The inaugural prize in 2024 was won by The Ceremony, a micro budget feature made in Yorkshire and directed by Jack King.
“This means so much to me, I’m gonna start bawling in a minute. This is the first film festival I ever came to as a teenager; it’s my spiritual home”
Jack King, Director of The Ceremony
The Sean Connery Award for Feature Filmmaking Excellence 2024 Winner Jack King (The Ceremony)
World Premiere Competitions
The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence is supported by The Peter Rice Foundation and the inaugural prize in 2024 was won by Manny Wolfe, directed by Trevor Neuhoff. Thelma Schoonmaker herself was in attendance to present the award.
“Short films are always a passion project. You put everything into them and so did everyone else in the competition. I think we’re all friends now, which I don’t think happens a lot at festivals”
Trevor Neuhoff, Director of Manny Wolfe
The Thelma Schoonmaker Award for Short Filmmaking Excellence 2024 winner Trevor Neuhoff (Manny Wolfe)
Programme Highlights
EIFF opened with the UK Premiere of The Outrun on 15 August 2024, with Nora Fingscheidt, Saoirse Ronan and Amy Liptrot in attendance. In addition to The Outrun, Alien: Romulus opened the Midnight Madness strand on the same evening. The Festival closed with the World Premiere of Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands and the UK Premiere of The Substance, again in the Midnight Madness strand. Programme strands included Out of Competition, featuring fiction, documentary and animation, a mix of World Premieres and UK Premieres sourced from countries from all over the world including Norway, USA, UK, Belgium, Latvia, France, Taiwan, Iran, India and Kazakhstan; Midnight Madness, spanning horror, comedy and action, UK Premieres and one World Premiere, with films from Australia, UK, Ireland and USA; Special Events & Retrospectives, including cinema classics presented by special guests and major In Conversation events; and Out of Competition, Animation, Documentary and Experimental Shorts programmes.
Greg Kwedar (Sing Sing) and Anthony Andrews (We Are Parable)
The Festival established new partnerships with Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society and Fringe organisations Monkey Barrel Comedy, Assembly Festival and Summerhall to engage a range of new audiences and develop artistic and professional synergies around storytelling and new talent. Tickets for all EIFF events and screenings were sold via the Fringe box office and popular app as well as via Fringe partners and onsite at Fringe venues.
The industry programme in 2024 focused on engaging with Scottish and international artists, creatives, and industry professionals across film and performing arts, providing targeted events for sharing knowledge and facilitating connections.
“Loved getting to see The Outrun in Scotland!”
Audience Survey
“Great in person guests, real sense of reinvigoration of the festival and some superb programming”
Audience Survey
“I liked that some of the venues weren’t cinemas. I enjoyed the pop up festival feel”
Audience Survey
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
The Festival programme explored a diverse range of themes, including financial precarity and multinational conglomerate capitalism, and showcased works from underrepresented and economically marginalised groups.
EIFF’s commitment to diversity shone through films with young, diverse casts; films exploring bonds between ethnic groups and racial diasporas; and films depicting multicultural families. The Festival championed stories about disability and neurodivergent experiences, and films on physical differences, prejudice and preconceptions.
Affordable ticketing options were available across the programme, all venues were physically accessible and access advice was available via the Fringe’s dedicated access bookings team. Accessibility measures included Audio Description (AD) at eight screenings, open captions for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) plus BSL interpretation at 18 screenings, and BSL interpretation at three live events.
“Diverse list of films, interesting Q+A / Panels offered. The tier of ticket prices was really appreciated, allowing more to see these films without being priced out. It was smooth getting into the theatres, there was rarely an issue”
Audience Survey
“They were so helpful in all of my inquiries and anything I needed help with. The staff were some of the loveliest people and it felt really welcoming having come from the other side of the world”
Audience Survey
“All the venues were accessible and easy to get to and it was easy to find information both printed and online about this year’s EIFF lineup” Survey feedback
Brian Cox (Succession, The Bourne Identity)
Environment
• We worked on digital delivery of films, encouraging rights holders to send films digitally wherever possible
• Our events were accessed using e-tickets to minimise paper waste
• We provided comprehensive information on how to access the Festival via public transport including cycle routes and buses both on our website and in our brochure
• For UK based travel, staff use trains whenever possible in order to avoid short-haul flights
• Environmental policy is available to view on EIFF website and is shared with all staff as part of induction
• Our recycling procedures are taught as part of staff inductions
• EIFF staff induction packs are paperless and available online
• All EIFF staff are encouraged, as far as possible, to go paperless and use online systems to communicate information
• We are committed to rejecting single-use plastics
Saoirse Ronan (The Outrun)
Press & Marketing
Highlights
Social media reach
Reach across socials
700,000
Outlets included
151 Print pieces across 48 outlets
470 Broadcast pieces across 706 channels
4,269 Online and syndicated pieces through 858 unique online outlets
“A rejuvenated celebration of cinema” The Scotsman “The city is bursting at the seams with creativity.”
The Hollywood Reporter
“Edinburgh International Film Festival is back and looking more dynamic than ever”
Time Out
Gasper Noé (Irréversible, Climax, Enter The Void)
EIFF Board
Andrew Macdonald
Chair
Amy Jackson
Vice Chair
Peter Rice
Isla McGillivray
Teresa Moneo
Romana Ramzan
Senior Executive Team
Paul Ridd
CEO & Festival Director
Emma Boa
Festival Producer
EIFF 2024 Funders, Partners and Supporters
EIFF’s Vision, Mission And Values
Vision
Film will be embraced as a powerful connector locally, nationally and internationally.
Mission
To connect film, artists and industry with audiences.
Values Integrity
We are honest, transparent and committed to strong ethical practices.
Innovation
We are forward-thinking, experimental and committed to making bold creative choices.
Collaboration
We are inclusive, multidisciplinary and committed to partnership working to amplify aims and benefits.
Paul Ridd, Andrew Macdonald, Thelma Schoonmaker and Emma Boa
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