23/06/2008

Director Stephen Woolley has been named the Patron of the new Directors’ Lab at the ongoing Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF).

The five-day lab will match up the six chosen directors with acclaimed directors and industry professionals. The selected directors are Hope Dickson Leach, Chares-Henri Belleville, Scott Graham, Jane Linfoot, Rene Mohandas and Amy Neil.

Industry practitioners working with the lab directors include Kevin Macdonald, Antonia Bird, Isabel Coixet, Seamus McGarvey Mogens Rukov Paul Andrew Williams, Ken Marshall, David Nicholls, Elizabeth Karlsen, Kahleen Crawford, Finola and Berenice Fugard.

Wolley said, “The chosen filmmakers will have an opportunity to meet and discuss with some of European cinema’s luminaries and will also get an opportunity to further their knowledge in the real world of cinema production. The filmmakers we have selected are both extremely talented and are exciting prospects for the future and if this lab helps to concentrate their vision and talent, I believe it will be a huge success.”

The Directors’ Lab has been set up and funded by the UK Film Council’s New Cinema Fund, Film4 and Skillset.

Lenny Crooks, head of the UKFC’s New Cinema Fund, said, “The UK excels in producing exceptional emerging filmmakers but the jump from shorts to features is massive, requiring a great idea, good writing, good producer, luck and timing. The lab is a bespoke, excellent, hands-on professional development to help filmmakers work out how to pull all of these things together.”

Jo McClellan, New Talent executive for Film4, said, “We think the hothouse feel and intimate nature of the Lab will be the perfect environment in which to crystallise this.”