![\"Paul](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1457146_paulriddheadshot83_324850_crop.jpg\")
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The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) returns on Thursday, August 14 for its second edition under the leadership of CEO and festival director Paul Ridd, alongside festival producer Emma Boa.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always thought of this as being kind of like our year one, with last year being our year zero,\u201d says Ridd, after he was tasked with reviving the festival for 2024<\/a> following a much-publicised period of flux<\/a>.\u2028\u2028<\/p>\n The festival opens with Eva Victor\u2019s comedy drama\u00a0Sorry, Baby, which screened to acclaim at both Sundance and Cannes Directors\u2019 Fortnight.\u00a0<\/p>\n Features such as<\/a> Campbell X\u2019s UK-South Africa co-production Low Rider and Helen Walsh\u2019s Cannes Great 8 title On The Sea are in the running for the \u00a350,000 Sean Connery prize for feature filmmaking excellence.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s EIFF features\u00a0new venues,<\/a> and a partnership between the industry programme<\/a> and Amy Jackson and Lauren Dark\u2019s nascent production company Unified<\/a>, to help turbocharge the professional offering. Jackson, who produced\u00a0Aftersun,\u00a0is vice chair of the EIFF board.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ridd talks to Screen about key learnings from 2024, programme highlights and finding inspiration in Bologna\u2019s Il Cinema Ritrovato.\u2028<\/p>\n What have you tweaked and evolved from last year?<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019re in slightly different spaces. We\u2019re delighted to be in the [recently reopened] Filmhouse, it\u2019s great to be back in the Cameo, and we\u2019re using Vue Omni for the first time this year.<\/p>\n Last year, we had a few pop-up spaces; this year, we have concentrated all of our pop-up initiatives into two spaces: the new cinema at the Hawthornden Lecture Theatre in the National Galleries of Scotland, and our main festival hub at Tollcross Central Hall, which is becoming fully ours this year.<\/p>\n We knew loud and clear we needed to come back with a proper festival hub so industry audiences and everybody could have a space to mingle and to do business, and to discuss films and spend time together.\u2028\u2028<\/p>\n We are still fully committed to the idea of more productively connecting the [Edinburgh] Fringe with the festival, so that pop-up principle isn\u2019t going to go away. It\u2019s very much part of what we want to do.<\/p>\n What are you most excited about in the programme? \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s everything from family-friendly fare like Grow, which is a Scottish production through and through, to much darker work like Simon Rumley\u2019s new film Crushed. \u2028\u2028<\/p>\n This year\u2019s industry programme is much bigger in scale and more ambitious [than last year\u2019s]. Film [screenings] are always front and central and the most important thing, but around that we have guests who emerge organically from those programmes \u2013 people like [director] Ben Wheatley and [producer] Andy Starke talking after their premiere Bulk, and Andrew Macdonald and Kevin Macdonald in conversation.<\/p>\n On top of that, there is everything we\u2019re doing through the Unified collaboration, being able to secure people like [A24\u2019s] Rose Garnett, [Film4 interim director] Farhana Bhula, [BBC Film director] Eva Yates, [US producers] Adele Romanski and David Hinojosa. These are amazing guests that our industry delegation is going to get meaningful experiences from. \u2028<\/p>\n Would you like to build more competition strands? A formal marketplace?<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019re not ruling out the possibility of more awards emerging, but for now, those are the two central building blocks of what we\u2019re trying to do [the Sean Connery prize and the \u00a315,000 Thelma Schoonmaker prize for shorts, with Schoonmaker taking part in an in conversation event].<\/p>\n Building a market is very important to us, and luring buyers and international distributors to Edinburgh to experience what we\u2019re all about.<\/p>\n Cultivating the world-premiere landscape where you really will be seeing things for the first time is very important.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Dragonfly\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1457156_dragonfly_919197.jpg\")
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