Film festival to switch to August

The Edinburgh International Film Festival is set to move back to August from this summer under a major rethink of the event.

Organisers are considering bringing it back into line with the Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe this summer – 13 years after a controversial dates change.

The move to stage the event in June rather than August has divided industry experts and audiences.

However the festival’s previous decision was based on the growing costs of staging the event in August, the wider availability of venues for events and screenings in June, and growing competition from other festivals.

Although cinemas have been given the green light to operate with socially distanced audiences from mid-may, the festival has not announced dates for its 2021 edition amid uncertainty over what Covid restrictions will be in place in Scotland over the summer.

It is believed that introducing the dates change from this August will give organisers more time to explore different options for the 2021 event.

The move back to August is being considered as part of a major overhaul of how the event is run, overseen by Ken Hay, chief executive of the Centre for the Moving Image, which also runs the Filmhouse cinema.

The festival has not had an artistic director since Mark Adams stood down in 2019.

The CMI shelved plans to hire a replacement after last year’s festival was called off due to the pandemic.