Huston to head Edinburgh jury
Actor Danny Huston will be the president of the Michael Powell jury at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF). Producer Sigurjon Sighvatsson, actress Joely Richardson, director Iain Softley and author Scarlett Thomas are the other jurors.
The jury presides over the Michael Powell Award for Best British Film as well as the PPG Award for Best Performance in a British Feature Film. From this year, the UK Film Council (UKFC) sponsored Powell Award rises in value from £5000 to £20,000.
In addition, the EIFF has increased the Skillset New Directors Award to £5000 from £1500.
EIFF Artistic Director Hannah McGill said, “This is a wonderful jury befitting a very exciting year for the Michael Powell Award. Scarlett Thomas is easily one of the country's finest and most ambitious young writers, and Joni Sigvahtsson is that rare beast: a Hollywood power broker with a sustained and passionate interest in quality world cinema. Danny Huston and Joely Richardson, meanwhile, are charismatic stars in their own right as well as inheritors of two of their industries’ most enviable sets of genes.
“John Huston, Danny's father, was a President of EIFF back in the 1960s; and we are actually showing a film by Tony Richardson, Joely's father, as part of our Jeanne Moreau retrospective. Iain Softley is a director I really respect, who has done fantastic work in both the UK and Hollywood, going back to his brilliant debut Backbeat in 1994 and his great adaptation of Henry James’ The Wings of the Dove (which starred another EIFF 2008 guest, Linus Roache). We are so looking forward to having these individuals join us in Edinburgh, and we await their thoughts on the films with great curiosity!”
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.
