Edinburgh International Film Festival diary: 18 August

EIFF 2023 launches today, but as Scotsman film critic Alistair Harkness notes in the first of his daily festival diaries, it could have been a very different story. After a troubled year, will opening night herald a new beginning?

The Edinburgh International Film Festival kicks off tonight. Ten months ago it seemed unlikely I’d be writing those words. But here we are, with the 76th edition about to roll out, the event now under the temporary umbrella of the Edinburgh International Festival after the Centre for the Moving Image ran it into the ground, taking Filmhouse and Aberdeen’s Belmont with it, and leaving hard-working staff (and the rest of us) in the dark about what actually happened.

The timing of last year’s collapse was grimly ironic. Its move back to August had seemed like a step in the right direction and its new artistic director, Kristy Matheson, looked like she might bring a fresh approach going forward. But with no festival and no job she understandably moved on to run the London Film Festival — an event with actual money and prestige.

It never used to be that way. When I started out London was a flabby, end-of-the-year greatest hits festival that played movies that had already premiered at EIFF. You went to Edinburgh to get the first taste of films like Darren Aronofsky's Pi and see Christopher Nolan talk about his career before he became ‘Christopher Nolan’.

But it’s easy to be nostalgic and envious. Against the odds, this year’s EIFF programme director Kate Taylor and her team have pulled together a compact, thoughtful-looking event with some good films in the mix. There’s also Andrew Macdonald, about to take up his position as the chair of the festival with the express aim of leading the formation of a new organisation to run it.

As the producer of Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, Macdonald transformed what a Scottish film could be: localised yet international, artistic yet commercial, brimming with confidence and full of hot new talent ready to explode onto the world. Maybe things don’t look so bleak after all.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival runs until 23 August. For more information and tickets visit: www.eif.co.uk/edinburgh-international-film-festival