Edinburgh International Film Festival [2001]

Excuse Me, But Are You a Statue?
Movieforum.com Goes To The Edinburgh Festival

Award Winners

The Standard Life Audience Award: Amelie [Jean-Pierre Jeunet] The Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature: Gas Attack [Kenny Glenaan] The Studio Award for Best British Short Film: Crow Stone [Alicia Duffy], About a Girl [Brian Percival] The European Film Academy Short Film Award: for A Man Thing [Slawomir Fabicki] The Guardian New Director's Award: L.I.E. [Michael Cuesta], Atanarjuat the Fast Runner [Zacharias Kunuk] The McLaren Award for New British Animation Dog [Suzie Templeton]

A popular Sunday newspaper in Scotland published the following advice about the Edinburgh Festival - go to Eastern Europe instead. It's particularly apt advice - considering that vast European populations converge on Edinburgh during the month of August we should probably embark on some kind of exchange programme to keep our respective sanities intact. Last year, I went to the EIFF for a day with my employers-of-sorts Scottish Screen (I worked for them, they didn't pay me - isn't student life wonderful?) who are perpetual sponsors of the Film Festival. My general impression was that it was a great waste of everyone's time to actually try and work, especially as our headquarters for the Festival doubled as a props cupboard. I was right. The EIFF is a good deal better experienced when you have nothing you need to get done in a hurry, or, indeed, at all.

The Edinburgh Festival consists of the Book Festival (an oasis of calm), the curiously invisible TV Festival, the Music Festival, I'm fairly sure an Art Festival, and the omnipresent Fringe. The Fringe ranges from seriously serious theatre and operatic performances to a bloke pretending to be a statue outside a department store. I considered going to see some Shakespeare, but then found out that, true to form, the performance was in Polish. As a result, my main interaction with the Fringe this year was taking pictures of the large, mysterious and apparently German inflatable which has sprung up down the road from the Edinburgh Filmhouse. No one actually appears to know what it is. As you may have gathered, if aliens did choose to land their flying saucers and pop into the Filmhouse to catch a few Werner Herzog films, no one would be any the wiser.

After a wander around the Book Festival in Charlotte Square, I finally got to the Filmhouse, where I had found some events to attend. The main problem with the Film Festival is that most of the films anyone actually wants to see are on at 21.00, which isn't convenient for anyone who doesn't live in Edinburgh. For examples of the films I didn't get to see, read Enigma, Ghost World, The Man Who Wasn't There and Hedwig And The Angry Inch. Insert great annoyance here.

The EIFF has unusually good resources for screenwriters, and this year I attended a panel of BBC writers for radio and TV. Unfortunately it descended into a succession of audience members venting their spleens about why their scripts hadn't been accepted. However, I did pick up some good leaflets and the event was free, so no harm done. The rest of the afternoon went a bit German, with a British premiere of The State I Am In, and Werner Herzog's documentary on My Best Fiend - Klaus Kinski.

If you can get somewhere to stay in Edinburgh over the Festival, it's undoubtedly an exciting place to be in terms of the films which are shown. Just don't talk to any strange statues.

- Lonely Walker

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