The Edinburgh Film Festival has announced its juries for its 2012 edition.
After last year's hiatus, which saw the accolades scrapped - to much consternation from press and industry - the Michael Powell Award for best British film has been reinstated, along with six other awards.
With previous winners including Duncan Jones' Moon and Shane Meadows' Somers Town, the Michael Powell has a prestigious history and the three-member jury this year will be chaired by Academy Awawrd winner Jim Broadbent. He will be joined Japanese actress Kiki Sugino (Hospitalite, Magic And Loss) and the founder and director of Tallinn's Black Nights FilmFestival Tiina Lokk. The jury will present awards for Best British Feature Film and Best Performance in a British Feature Film and, for the first time since the award was inaugurated in 1990, documentaries will be eligible for contention.
Jim Broadbent said: "It's very exciting to be Chair of the Michael Powell Jury. I have always had the most brilliant of times at the Edinburgh Festival and I'm sure the Film Festival will be equally stimulating; and I relish the opportunity to see such a great range of films in such special company."
The International Feature Competition Jury will be chaired by actor Elliott Gould (Capricorn One, Ocean's Eleven). The jury also includes independent producer and former Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Programme Director Julietta Sichel and multi-award winning filmmaker Lav Diaz, whose latest film, Florentina Hubaldo, CTE, will screen at EIFF in the Philippine New Wave strand. The International Feature Competition will also consider documentary films alongside narratives for the first time.
EIFF artistic director Chris Fujiwara said: “We’re honoured and delighted that our feature and short film competitions will be judged by jurors of such distinction. I’m also very excited that EIFF will affirm its support for the future of film criticism by launching the Student Critics Jury Award.”
The British Short Film Competition Jury includes Boston Phoenix critic and filmmaker Gerald Peary (For The Love Of Movies: The Story Of American Film Criticism), broadcaster Edith Bowman and director Rita Azevedo Gomes (A Woman's Revenge).
The inaugural Student Critics Jury Award will be deliberated by a jury of three aspiring film critics, who will work with two established critics as mentors across the duration of the Festival to develop their writing and critical skills. Genevieve Bicknell, from Edinburgh College of Art; Jonathan Glen, studying MLitt Film Journalism at Glasgow University and Liam Nolan from Napier University, Edinburgh are 2012’s Jury members. The critic mentors are Sight & Sound editor Nick James, Editor and Editor-in-Chief of Netherlands-based De Filmkrant Dana Linssen.
The International Short Film Competition Jury includes Erwin Houtenbrink (Programme Consultant, International Film Festival Bratislava), Scottish actor Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting, Perfect Sense), and Javier Porta Fouz (Programmer, Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema).
Read our full coverage here.
