For the 2nd running year, Edinburgh has sought to promote new British filmmaking talent through it's Trailblazers scheme, in partnership with Skillset. It offers the selected lucky few introductions with key UK film industry, a guided hand on the festival circuit and celebrates the new names issuing forth from the film festival that first brought to our attention Samantha Morton, Daniel Craig, Emily Blunt, Lynne Ramsay, David Mackenzie, Shane Meadows, Asif Kapadia, Andrea Arnold and more recently BAFTA Nominee Sam Riley (Lead Actor in Control) who was amongst 2007’s Trailblazers.

The film talent below have been selected from the EIFF programme and the graduation shorts submitted by students of the Skillset Screen Academies:

Edinburgh International Film Festival Programme Selection
Lol Crawley – Cinematographer, BETTER THINGS
David Bloom – Co-writer, DONKEY PUNCH
Lisa Trnovski – Producer, MUM AND DAD
Tony Slater-Ling – Cinematographer, SUMMER
Joe Lawlor – Co-writer / Director, HELEN
Christine Molloy – Co-writer / Director, HELEN
Thomas Turgoose – Actor, SOMERS TOWN
Alia Alzougbi – Actress, TROUBLE SLEEPING
Nichola Burley – Actress, DONKEY PUNCH
Gideon Koppel – Director, sleep furiously

Screen Academy Network Trailblazers:

The National Film &TV School
Ian Clark, Director / Writer – OUTCASTS
Megan Stuart Wallace, Producer / Writer - OUTCASTS

Skillset Screen Academy Wales
Felix Massie – Director / Writer / Animator, KEITH REYNOLDS CAN’T MAKE IT TONIGHT
Yiorgos Moustakis – Director / Writer / Producer, MARI
Firman Machda – Director, EMPTY SPACE

Bournemouth Screen Academy
Justin Brown – Cinematographer, OPEN SKIES
Rob Brown – Director, OPEN SKIES
Stacey Bradshaw – Director / Character animator, IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Samantha Davies – Director / Background animator, IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Screen Academy Scotland
John Douglas Dodds – Director, GERIATRICS, THE MUSICAL
Catriona Craig – Director, THE PROBLEM WITH PETS

The London Film School
Rιmi Borgeaud – Director / Writer, UN RIFF PARA LAZARO
Miri Shapiro – Editor, UN RIFF PARA LAZARO
Ong Chantarangkul - Director / Writer, WINGS OF BLUE ANGELS
Natalie Higashi – Producer, WINGS OF BLUE ANGELS

Skillset will also be hosting a number of exclusive Trailblazer Masterclasses, breakfast sessions and careers panels at this year’s EIFF, which will feature Shane Meadows, Brian Tufano and Terence Davies with Don Boyd. The winner of the Skillset New Director’s Award in 2006 – Paul Andrew Williams (London To Brighton, The Cottage), will also be in town to meet and mentor the new Trailblazers, talking about his career since winning the award. See our Edinburgh preview feature for an overview of the films, and watch out for Edinburgh interviews with some of the new talent mentioned here in the next 2 weeks.

The Trailblazing shorts programme at Edinburgh International Film Festival is screened on Monday 23 June at 3.00pm.

Edinburgh International Film Festival runs from 18-29th June. The full programme can be found on their website.

Claire Spencer Cook | Published 16 June 08

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