The Edinburgh Film Festival has announced it’s not to find a new artistic director after the departure of Hannah McGill (I searched for the story there, but failed). McGill took over running the festival after Shane Donaldson in 2008. Having seen both in action, they had very different styles, but McGill was (and was acknowledged as) as a new, innovative voice there. Instead, no one person is to have swy, but Tilda Swinton and Mark Cousins (who have proven tremendous value is creating film festivals in their own backyard) are to be part of the running of the new look scene. The newspaper coverage of this latest move references that ticket sales were down by 10%, but I think that’s a red herring in the analysis of the impact of film festivals. They seem an increasingly complex beast; of the bigger ones, in my limited experience, Edinburgh was particularly visible in its populist reaching out to its public (not surprising when it started as part of the August festival) and its role as an industry power-meet on various levels (television as well as film). Its move from August to June might hint at an identity crisis – part of a constant quest to define itself against much bigger festivals and an attempt to gain the requisite number of premieres. That might have been regarded as all too much to ask, with the Coalition abolition of the Film Council biting immediately.

These new proposals recall the DIY culture that we existed with in the arts in Britain during the 1980s (without quite the same political target – yet). Bring back the ‘mucking in’ of various visionaries to reinvigorate a festival that may have lost its way. I’m heartened that the film and TV makeover is to be orchestrated (in part) by Swinton and Cousins, who have already proved they can generate a successful artistic event with their film festival in Nairn (and beyond) and have a commitment to the idea of film as a community experience again. Cousins’s comment is telling: that, in a world that houses 2,000 festivals, they will aim to mash the festival up with other art forms to create something that stands out. Increasingly, film festivals have become a way of generating cultural and business platforms for a city such that the calendar is ridiculously full of them. But Edinburgh is not fighting for recognition with the minnows surely? Having been for the last few years, it’s been a fantastic environment to hear inspiring – international – writers, directors, producers, performers, cinematographers – speak. Here’s my list – in which I’ve deliberated over the order (because I have heard the most inspirational people in all filmmaking categories: Thelma Schoonmaker, Steven Soderbergh, Andrea Arnold, Anthony Dod Mantle, Peter Mullan, Roger Corman, Julie Delpy, Stephen Frears, Robin Wright-Penn, Sam Mendes. It’s okay to be artistic and edgy, but the business infrastructure that exists around the festival to create the business networks, so vital in the British industry, surely need to be nurtured as well, through an event that has the requisite status to attract attendees from abroad. I’m firmly in it for the art (I couldn’t pretend I knew enough otherwise anyway) but Edinburgh always educated me in a very fruitful mix of art with business – of how that art really gets on screen, with commitment and passion by its producers, ignored but no less bitten by the bug of cinema. I hope we haven’t given up on that as part of the Edinburgh mix. The limited media coverage so far (British Radio 4) has focussed on Tilda Swinton as curator and the idea of dropping the award ceremonies (which implies an avoidance of glamour). Perhaps the festival will manage, Janus-like, to turn its face in two directions at the same time – away from the workings of celebrity while benefiting from Swinton’s star status and ability to draw the big names to Edinburgh. A happy new year to it then!