Edinburgh International Film Festival to bring back awards

Gongs for best British feature, best performance in a British film and best international award are to be revived a year after the festival shelved all of its long-standing awards.

Organisers are believed to be planning to reinstate other awards for short films and animated films, as well as the hugely popular “audience award”, which was voted on by ticket-buyers in previous years.

However, the festival – which has about half the budget it had two years ago – has admitted it is still seeking sponsors for awards.

Major backers for the awards in recent years, such as Standard Life and the UK Film Council, are no longer involved with the EIFF.

For the first time, documentaries will be eligible for the Michael Powell Award for best British feature under a “streamlined” awards being planned.

It is not known whether the festival’s traditional last-day awards ceremony, which was last held in 2009, when it was presided over by Sir Sean Connery, will be brought back.

Big-name stars are expected to be invited to Edinburgh to make up the juries for the main prizes. Previous judges have included actors Sir Patrick Stewart, John Hurt, Alan Cumming, Kerry Fox, Joely Richardson, Britt Ekland, Danny Huston and Kate Dickie.

The revival for the Michael Powell Award, the EIFF’s most prestigious award, which was first handed out in 1993, was announced last year when new artistic director Chris Fujiwara revealed the event would be staying in its June slot, despite pressure from some critics and industry figures to move back to August.

Eligibility for the three awards confirmed so far will be at the discretion of Mr Fujiwara, who has also pledged to bring back red-carpet premieres, which were also controversially banned at the 2011 event, witnessing a dramatic slump in ticket sales.

Speaking from the Berlin International Film Festival, Mr Fujiwara said yesterday: “I am delighted to re-introduce these awards for the Festival this year and am pleased to give both documentary and fiction films the opportunity to win the awards. I feel very strongly that having noteworthy awards is important for an international film festival.

“Awards can stimulate creative dialogue and, above all, help shine the spotlight on emerging talent, which is part of the mission of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.”

A spokeswoman for the festival said the event was hoping to bring back the audience award “in some form” and that there were also “likely” to be several other awards.

Mr Fujiwara’s appointment was confirmed in September but he did not relocate to Scotland from Japan until mid-January.

He is under pressure to restore the event’s battered reputation this summer, despite a vastly reduced budget and growing competition from the Glasgow Film Festival, which starts tomorrow.

Edinburgh-based veteran film critic Richard Mowe said: “I think most people would welcome the return of these awards. It’s definitely the right thing to do before any more damage is done to the festival’s reputation.

“All international film festivals have awards, they are seen as benchmarks of a festival programme and are integral to any event. I don’t think you should have a plethora of awards, as that would dilute the value of them, but you would want to cover all the main categories.”

• This year’s EIFF runs from 20 June-July 1