The Programme

We are delighted to announce that writer-director Alicia MacDonald will open the festival in conversation with Lucy Bolton, author and Professor of Film Philosopy, Queen Mary University of London. Alicia’s first feature, the campus rom-com Finding Emily for Working Title/Parkville Pictures/Focus Features follows her work for TV including Stephen Merchant’s The Outlaws and Lena Dunham’s Too Much, Motherland) and her directorial debut, Pure for Channel4.

Development is where stories are tested, refined and transformed into projects capable of attracting collaborators, finance and audiences. It is a process of asking difficult questions, embracing feedback and learning when to hold your vision — and when to let it evolve.

Bringing together producers and filmmakers, this conversation explores how projects move from concept to screen, what decision-makers are looking for, and how emerging filmmakers can give their work the greatest chance of finding its place in an increasingly competitive industry.

The strongest creative careers are built through relationships, collaboration and the communities that make work possible. In this session producer, screenwriter and professor Neil Fox and Denzil Monk, producer with Bosena will draw on their experience to explore how meaningful professional relationships can create opportunities, sustain creative practice and connect education with the wider screen industries that extend beyond making a single project.

How can filmmakers make ambitious work while reducing the environmental impact of production? Sustainability is becoming fundamental to how the screen industries work.This conversation looks at how environmental responsibility can be embedded across development, production and storytelling, and how sustainable thinking can support rather than limit creative ambition. Panellists will consider practical approaches, emerging standards and the choices filmmakers can make at every stage of a project

Every film begins with belief – but belief alone does not finance production. Producer and educator Valentina Signorelli will explore how independent films are packaged for potential partners and financiers, and moved towards producttion. The session is designed to make the business of getting a film financed more legible and to help participants identify the next steps for their own projects.

Casting shapes character, chemistry and the emotional truth of a film. Drawing on her professional casting experience, Lucy Amoswill explore the relationship between filmmaker, casting director and performer, and the decisions that sit behind auditions and final casting choices, giving filmmakers a clearer understanding of how to prepare for and work effectively through the creative process.

From development and visual effects to post-production and distribution, artificial intelligence is reshaping screen practice at speed. This panel asks how filmmakers can engage with these technologies critically, creatively and responsibly. What might AI make possible, what risks does it introduce, and how should the industry think about consent, ownership, labour and the value of human creative work?

How do you turn creative ambition into a production that can actually be delivered? Line producing sits at the point where creative ambition meets production reality. Drawing on experience across international and independent productions, producer and production manager Ioanna Karavela (IK Pictures) will explore how budgets, schedules, logistics and decision-making support the creative process. The session offers a practical introduction to the responsibilities of the line producer and the judgement required to keep a production moving while protecting the work on screen.

Creative careers rarely move in a straight line. Freelancers increasingly work across overlapping screen, media and creative sectors, often combining different roles, income streams and forms of practice. Alison Grade, founder and CEO of specialist training company Mission Accomplished and author of The Freelance Bible, will explore how transferable skills, entrepreneurial thinking and an ability to adapt can help freelancers at every career stage navigate periods of change without losing sight of their creative ambitions.

Freelancers, students, emerging practitioners and mid-career professionals navigating change or diversification are welcome to join this session.

Expectations around mental health, inclusion, professional boundaries and working culture are changing across the screen industries. This conversation examines the practices and structures that help people do their best work while creating healthier production environments. From psychological safety and inclusive leadership to professional responsibility, the panel asks what good practice looks like in real working conditions – and why it benefits both people and productions.

Great films are rarely the result of individual talent alone.Film is an inherently collaborative art form, but successful collaboration requires more than assembling talented people. It depends on trust, communication, shared purpose and an understanding of the different roles that bring a project to life. Drawing on experiences across the industry, this panel explores how creative partnerships begin, how they survive difficult moments and how filmmakers can build relationships that make the work stronger.

Working with real people and lived experience requires filmmakers to make creative decisions that are also ethical ones. Every choice – what to film, what to leave out and how a story is framed – shapes the relationship between filmmaker, participant and audience. In this session practitioners and scholars will explore the craft of contemporary documentary filmmaking:, how filmmakers build trust, work responsibly with contributors, and shape complex material into compelling cinema.

Every memorable film begins with an authentic voice. Story development is about more than plot. It is the process through which filmmakers discover what a story is really about, strengthen character and structure, and learn how to test and reshape an idea without losing its distinctive voice. This session offers practical ways to interrogate a project and move it forward with greater clarity and purpose.

Writer-director Shalini Adnani’s debut feature Share of Sand received its world premiere in the Venice Film Festival’s International Critics’ Week. Shalini has many cultures to draw on for influence,as a Chile-born, New York-educated, south London-based filmmaker of Sindhi Indian descent. Whilst at New York’s Bard College she worked with an initiative that supports prisoners’ education and then pursued journalism, returning to Chile to work in the art department for TV drama The Archives Of The Cardinal. She is currently developing her UK-set second feature Hold Still.

The distribution landscape is changing rapidly across theatrical, digital, festival and independent models. How can yoiu identify an audience and build a realistic route to reaching it? This panel demystifies how films move towards audiences, how distribution strategies are built and why filmmakers need to think about audience long before the final edit.

What changes when you make the leap from shorts and early work to a first feature? Making a first feature is one of the defining transitions in a filmmaker’s career. Following an acclaimed body of short films, writer-director Fateme Ahmadi has recently completed her first feature Daughter of Eden, giving her a particularly current perspective on that leap. This session explores the creative and practical realities of moving into feature filmmaking – from development and financing to production, persistence and the career decisions that help a project reach the screen.

A compelling project deserves an equally compelling pitch. Learn how to communicate a creative idea with clarity, confidence and impact. Pitching is not about performing a formula – it is about helping someone else see the project you can already see. Led by Christine Hartland of SMASH Media, this practical session explores how filmmakers can present themselves and their work to producers, funders and collaborators with greater clarity and confidence. Participants will consider what makes a pitch memorable, how to structure the essential information and how to develop a pitching style that feels authentic rather than rehearsed.

Further information on how to participate in this session will be announced in due course.

There is no single route from education into the screen industries. In this candid conversation, graduates and emerging talent, now industry practitioners, map the realities of building a career: first opportunities, unexpected turns, periods of uncertainty, parallel work, collaborations and the relationships that helped them move forward. By making those journeys visible, the panel offers students and emerging practitioners something more useful than a perfect success story – a realistic picture of how creative careers are actually built.

Film festivals can launch films, create audiences and open professional relationships – but only if filmmakers understand how the ecosystem works. Learn how programmers discover work, build programmes and think about the films they champion with Edinburgh International Film Festival Director Paul Ridd. This sesson will enable filmmakers to think more strategically about making festival submissions and how to make the most of the opportunities that begin once a film is selected.

Film curation is both a creative practice and a form of cultural gatekeeping. Programmers and curators shape which stories are seen, how work is contextualised and the conversations that films generate. This panel explores how festival and cinema programmes are built, how curators approach selection and how filmmakers can engage more thoughtfully with the people and organisations responsible for bringing films to audiences.

Filmmakers whose projects are selected from the 60 Minute Challenge held earlier in the week will have the opportunity to ‘go live’ and pitch their projects to a panel of industry practitioners.