ifeatures Takes Centre Stage At Edinburgh

iFeatures, Creative England’s exciting low budget feature film initiative, will be making a splash at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival (20 June – 1 July 2012). Not only does Flying Blind, the third feature film to be commissioned under the programme, get its world première, but away from the red carpet, the iFeatures team will be participating in a number of events to develop new filmmaking talent. They will also be preparing to announce the teams to be chosen for initial development support under iFeatures2.
iFeatures reopened for submissions in March to find the best stories from England’s regions. Almost 400 teams applied to develop and produce their innovative feature film ideas on a budget of £350,000.
The BFI Film Fund, BBC Films and Creative Skillset-backed initiative is Creative England’s flagship talent development scheme and the only one offering production investment. It is aimed at writer, producer and director teams who can already demonstrate a strong body of work.
The projects selected will be supported by the partners through an initial eight-week development and training programme, from which eight teams will be taken forward for an intensive creative and commercial development phase. The final films to be commissioned will be greenlit in November.
iFeatures’ Executive Producer, Tristan Goligher, will discuss the challenges presented by low budget filmmaking when he chairs a panel at Edinburgh exploring the opportunities and constraints filmmakers face. Small Budgets, Big Talents (Tuesday 26 June) will bring together some of Britain’s brightest new filmmakers to discuss the highs and lows and do’s and don’ts of the type of film making that has recently produced successes such as Weekend, Archipelago and Monsters.
Tristan is also on the panel for a debate on the future of the UK film industry at Film London’s Low Budget on Trial event (Friday 22 June). Debating in front of a live audience, the panel will discuss a number of potentially controversial propositions, such as the best way to invest public money to what constitutes ‘groundbreaking’ filmmaking.
The iFeatures team will be joined by other members of Creative England’s Talent Development team, including Senior Talent Executives, Anna Seifert-Speck and Caroline Cooper Charles, Talent Manager, Wendy Bevan-Mogg, Talent Co-ordinator, Haley Mellor, and Head of Talent, Chris Moll, who will be taking part in events from the Bird’s Eye View pitching session to the Festival’s Saturday night ceilidh (see below for the full list).
Caroline will join David Pope for the Advance Films Pitch First Feature event, supported by the London Film Academy (Tuesday 26 June). The session will give filmmakers tips and skills to build confidence, intuition and their ability to individually tailor their pitch for their audience.
Anna and Wendy will be holding one-to-one meetings with up-and-coming filmmakers at the Talent Lab (Saturday 23 June), and will also be at the Bird’s Eye View sessions (Monday 25 June), which are designed to give female filmmakers the opportunity to discuss their ideas or careers with UK film commissioners.
Tristan Goligher said: “More than ever I'm excited to see the British films at Edinburgh this year. There feels like an especially strong embrace of low budget film making, and I'm excited to see the new voices emerging at this year’s festival. Beyond the films themselves I'm looking forward to meeting filmmakers and seeing how iFeatures can learn from their experiences and vice versa."
Chris Moll said: “Creative England has hit the ground running with a really strong talent development team, which has meant we’ve been able to get involved with a wide range of events across the board. This should be an interesting first Edinburgh for Creative England and I’m looking forward to getting underway with iFeatures2.”
Creative England iFeatures