Still from To Save The Whale by Gavin Newman When Stuart McInnes started doodling on Photoshop last February he didn’t seriously think that the flyer for the imaginary documentary film festival he was creating would actually become a reality. But at 7 o’clock at the Church Hill Theatre in Edinburgh this Thursday that’s exactly what will happen.
Director Georgina Hurcombe of Love Love Films will introduce her poignant 28 minute film I Won’t Go, the first of 25 films in competition at the first ever EdinDocs, and a new film festival will be born.
EdinDocs evolved from Stuart’s love of documentary. Although he runs Edinburgh’s Tri Centre by day, he is a keen independent filmmaker in his spare time. In 2008, Stuart followed his friend, photographer Joe Colligan, to India as Joe worked on documentary project of his own. The result is a 17 minute musing on the creative process involved in putting together a photo essay, entitled In Search of Subject Matter.
'I didn’t really have ambition for the documentary to be on TV,' recalls Stuart. 'But I thought I could find a nice niche for it at a film festival.' So Stuart aimed high and submitted his piece to the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Telluride Film Festival. Like thousands of submissions received by these major festivals every year it was rejected.
Then the film got accepted by London Independent Film Festival and this got Stuart thinking. What if there were a smaller, independent film festival just for documentaries in Edinburgh? He showed his spoof flyer to Joe who instantly said, 'Let’s do it.'
So Stuart set up an account with Withoutabox, an online submission system for film festivals. 'We created some loose dates in September because we knew there wasn’t much else on then, created a logo and sent it out,' he says.
Very soon submissions started to flow in – about 160 in all. Stuart and Joe then realised that they would really have to get into gear. Fast. They quickly got some rather impressive sponsors on board, including, with the help of Teri Wishart, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish Documentary Institute, and found a venue.
The pair arranged prizes for the best feature and best short, which include inclusion in the prestigious Scottish Screen Archive and public showings at the National Library of Scotland, and they invited filmmakers to attend.
One of those who agreed to appear is the director of the closing film, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Gavin Newman. His film To Save The Whale, a beautifully shot and thought-provoking look at Greenpeace’s 25 year anti-whaling campaign. Gavin will be available after the screening for a Q&A session
So if you fancy going along, check out the EdinDocs website. Films are arranged in showings of up to five films of varying lengths, and each session has an interval.
Tickets are priced at £10 for a matinee showing (Friday and Saturday afternoons) and £15 for an evening showing (Thursday, Friday and Saturday). You can buy a festival pass for £50.
