The Filmhouse published in its last programme its intentions of offering free tickets for community groups at the EIFF. the tickets get sponsored partly by Standard Life and a Business & Arts link up group.
Yesterday the meeting of all community groups interested in taking part in the free ticket scheme happened at the Filmhouse. There seemed to be about 20-30 different groups present, and the Filmhouse crew mentioned they had to turn many more away.
Unfortunately they only have 100 free tickets in total.
They also did not say how they would select the groups, and I exploded a little bit with my hungarian side going up the roof, which wasn’t particularly helpful, but made them probably realise the extend of the problem, and they seem to have shifted their focus slightly from selecting groups to giving all groups some, but fewer tickets.
Anyways, as blogged before I critisised the Filmhouse for the EIFF being pretty exclusive to the majority of the Edinburgh population, as many can not afford the ticket entry prices. It seems to be a bit better this year, I hardly found any tickets costing the £10 I saw last year, but still, most of the documentaries are only screened once, and they are an excellent tool for education and building global awareness and empathy for other people and situations.
I also claimed that it builds an atmosphere of playing groups of against each other, and that the criteria for selection would be unclear.
On a more informal note, I put the list of my prefered films to them and they recommended “Who needs sleep” and “The Refugee All Stars”. I also asked them about the “My country, my country” and they stated it would more about the general situation in Iraq rather than a profile of the politicians.
They seemed to be pretty passionate about the film.
Also the Al Gore film was recommended by a film critic, too; maybe I have been a bit too harsh in trying to select my prefered screenings. But then, I usually obnly can afford one EIFF experience a year!