We are delighted to announce our roster of industry guests attending the BFI Film Academy Scotland Craft Residential to impart their wisdom and experience to our participants over a series of masterclasses and interactive workshops.
We have been very lucky to secure some of the best and brightest talent from across the value chain of filmmaking; from producers to directors, to programmers and distributors. The 24 young filmmakers on this year’s Scotland Residential will learn about every aspect of the industry from those in the know, while also making their own short films over this super intensive eleven day Academy.
First up we have Scottish producer Wendy Griffin who will be sharing her experience line-producing feature films such as Red Road, Outcast, Citadel and TV shows such as Pramface and Eve, as well as producing both drama and documentary films with work like Not Another Happy Ending and Big Gold Dream (winner of the Audience Award at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival).
Following on from Wendy we are delighted to have one of the most prolific and talented directors working across TV and film in the UK. Hot off the back of filming She Who Brings Gifts, starring Gemma Arterton, Glenn Close and Paddy Considine; Colm McCarthy will deliver an in depth career discussion covering his extensive and diverse work that includes directing Peaky Blinders, Sherlock, Dr Who, Outcast, Ripper Street, The Tudors amongst many others.
Writer/Director Scott Graham closed this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival to great critical acclaim with his beautifully haunting second feature film Iona. Following on from his breakout debut feature Shell (developed from his own short of the same name), Scott will be discussing the path from successful short filmmaker to established feature filmmaker.
Looking in-depth at the world of short films we are delighted to have two multi-award winning Scottish writer/directors with us for a very special masterclass. Cara Connolly has achieved wide success with her short film Exchange & Mart screening at Sundance, Berlin, Glasgow and winning Best Short Film at the Leeds International Film Festival, as well as the audience Award at Glasgow Short Film Festival. Martin Smith has a number of award winning short films under his belt including the most recent, Seagulls, which screened at over 20 International Film Festivals to date including having its World Premiere in competition at the 2014 Berlin International Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Crystal Bear for Best Short Film. Both short films will be screened and discussed during an interactive discussion.
Delving into the world of film festivals and programming we are delighted to have Lydia Beilby, Shorts Programmer at Edinburgh International Film Festival and Morvern Cunningham, Festival Coordinator at Glasgow Short Film Festival, at the Academy for an interactive session concentrating on short film curation and festival programming.
Our final industry session gets to grips with the nuts and bolts of talent development, film funding and distribution with round table discussions featuring the leading players in Scotland; Ross McKenzie from Creative Scotland, Claudia Yusef from Scottish Film Talent Network and Victoria Mackenzie, Account Manager at Distrify Media (plus more to be announced).
We are delighted to be delivering the BFI Film Academy Craft Residential here in Edinburgh for a second year and extremely thankful to all the professionals above for taking the time to be involved.
We are excited to welcome all the participants on Thursday 30th July.
