International reporter

All official communications from the organisers of the 2024 Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) have described this year’s edition as “refreshed” or “revitalised” – a clear statement signalling that new management is at the helm. The statement may seem odd for an event that has often trumpeted its heritage, billing itself as the world’s “oldest continuously running film festival”. Over the past two years, however, Edinburgh has been at the centre of a significant period of turbulence within the Scottish film industry.

All the chaos can be traced back to the finances of Scotland’s Centre for the Moving Image (CMI), which collapsed in 2022. At the time, CMI executives said in a statement that a “perfect storm” of rising costs and falling audiences caused by the pandemic had been compounded by the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. As part of CMI’s closure, operations at EIFF were halted. The charity’s two celebrated physical cinema venues, Belmont Filmhouse in Aberdeen and Filmhouse Cinema in Edinburgh, also closed their doors. Both venues have since relaunched and rebranded thanks to successful local campaigns.

However, the EIFF brand was acquired by Screen Scotland, a national funding body, allowing for a slimmed-down edition in 2023 under interim programme director Kate Taylor. Veteran Scottish producer Andrew Macdonald (Trainspotting) was later brought in to lead a new board responsible for the festival, and their first move in the role was a popular one. Paul Ridd, a respected, long-standing acquisitions executive at Picturehouse Cinemas, was appointed festival director.