It's Hannah McGill's first year as Artistic Director and the festival is thus replete with welcome changes: new branding for the festival; new names for some old staples (Reel Life if now In Person for instance); new collaborations with the Screen Academies, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival, the National Theatre of Scotland, the Collective Gallery, and the Traverse Theatre; and a new sponser (Sky Movies Indie).
The launch opened with a tribute to Penny Thompson, Director of EIFF from 1992-1994, who died earlier this week after a long battle with cancer. Apparently one of her last texts to the festival had been to compliment McGill on her choice of opening film, Edinburgh-based Hallam Foe, and it was therefore appropriatte that this tribute was followed by an introduction to David MacKenzie, the film's director, and Jamie Bell's co-star in the film, Sophia Myles. MacKenzie praised the festival and added that the international premieres of all his films - 8 shorts and 4 features to date - had been at Edinburgh and added to the earlier tributes by describing how Penny Thompson had encouraged him in the earlier years of his career. Myles gave a warm introduction to Hallam Foe: though she had never been to Scotland before filming she has clearly loved filming in Edinburgh and felt it's selection was hugely appropriatte as "the city is really the star of our film".
Hannah McGill (see picture below), looking glamourously retro in 40's cut skirt suit and seamed stockings (a look perfectly in tune with this year's Golden Age of Hollywood era retrospective of Anita Loos), presented a fuller selection of the programme of her first festival as Artistic Director highlighting her favourites including: Control, Sugar House, Extraordinary Rendition, WAZ, Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park and Malle Noche, The Counterfitter, Breech, The Witnesses, Knocked Up, The Year of the Dog, Tarantino's Death Proof and documentaries including the Shadow of the Moon, Flying - Confessions of a Free Woman and Crazy Love.
McGill also ran through some of the stars slated to be in town for the festival from Julie Delphy, whose enjoyable Two Days in Paris will be the Closing Night Gala, to Chris Cooper, Irvine Welsh, Mike Leigh, Paul laverty, Samantha Morton, Stellan Skarsgard, Stephen Frears, William Nicholson, Judd Apatow, John Waters and new EIFF patron Tilda Swinton. You can also assume Jamie Bell will be along for opening night as he appeared on film to endorse the festival, introduce a great looking set of clips of Hallam Foe, and to let us know that he'll see us in August.
This year's programme is themed around the written word with a fabulous looking retrospective of screenwriter Anita Loos' work which will include her most famous work, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, showing alongside the brilliantly catty The Women and a number of her less famous - but ripe for rediscovery - cinematic output including Intolerance (she worked on the witty title cards), Red-Headed Woman, Susan and God (with the ever watchable Joan Crawford), Saratoga and His Picture in the Papers (one of Loos' many collaborations with star Douglas Fairbanks Snr). There will also be a special talk on Loos' by her biographer Cari Beauchamp which will include rare screenings of two of Loos' earliest filmed scenarios: The Mystery of the Leaping Fish and The New York Hat.
All in all it looks to be a bumper year with collaborations to show new work form the UK Screen Academies, the ever strong Mirrorball, Document and Black Box sections and a number of readings and events that link EIFF 2007 into the wider world of Edinburgh Festivals.
Watch this space.... !
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