Changing Man: James Mullighan Interview

There’s no such thing as bad publicity, so they say. Tell that to James Mullighan. Since his appointment as director of Edinburgh International Film Festival in December last year his tenure has suffered from a Molotov cocktail of rumours, miscommunications, PR disasters and more than a little hostility from the Scottish press at his proposed festival rethink. The wiry Aussie was defiant, unapologetic and remarkably upbeat, however, when he faced the waiting hordes of sceptical journalists at the launch of the 65th Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF).

Mullighan’s gambit couldn’t have been more forthright: “Repetition in festivals, whether film, art, music – whatever – leads to boredom and staleness,” he says, forcefully. “Throughout its history, [Edinburgh International Film Festival] has been provocative, controversial, a little dangerous often, a debate leader and a cultural setter, but not lately. We want to get that back – for all of us.”

There is a hint of spin around Mullighan’s rhetoric. Like a photo negative of our current government’s programme of efficiencies, these radical changes are being presented as a desired shift in the festival’s creative ideology rather than a fiscal imperative brought about by the end of generous funding support from the now defunct UK Film Council. After the launch I spoke to Mullighan about the programme in more depth, and begun by asking whether these changes are purely economic necessity.

“I think this festival in 2011 would have to be taking a long honest look in the mirror regardless of budget,” Mullighan tells me after the media have left. “I believe that Edinburgh has been, lately, and necessarily, a cog in the movie through theatrical, through DVD, through television transmission, online, downloads... a cog in that sausage machine.” To take Mullighan’s metaphor further, towards the end of former EIFF director Hannah McGill's reign, those sausages had begun to resemble the Tesco value variety: unappetising, gristle and innards filled bangers rejected by the elite festivals on the international circuit.

Mullighan argues that EIFF’s once strong showing on the festival calendar was less to do with its ability to match the likes of Cannes and Berlin in star power and more to do with its history of risk-taking programming, growing as it did from a protest at the city’s International Festival's exclusion of cinema from its inaugural programme in 1947. “The only reason Edinburgh Film Festival was in the position to have conversations with those distributors, producers and sales agents in the first place is that it had been a fertile place for the exploration of ideas through film.” His aim with this year’s festival is to recapture the spirit of the festival's rebellious days: “It’s going to look energized; it’s going to make more noise; it’s going to get into the ears and eyes of people who haven’t noticed it before; it’s going to take that which it did well, develop it and expand it, and then seize a bunch of opportunities that I believe were right under its nose.”

These opportunities include opening the festival out across the city, utilising three spaces at the University of Edinburgh: George Square theatre, high-tech “informatics laboratory” Inspace and Teviot, the university’s cavernous student union, which acts as the new headquarters for the festival. Other innovations this year include a massively increased shorts programme sponsored by Nokia, and day long event Project: New Cinephilia, which looks at how cinema is written about in our digital age. Mullighan's most publicised change is that EIFF will no longer attempt to recreate the Lido of Venice or the Coisette in Cannes using the Cineworld car park on Dundee Street. “I don’t think we did that very well. And I also don’t think the British film industry needs us to do that, especially when it’s such a slick show down in London’s Leicester Square.”

There’s also been a clear attempt by Mullighan and his team to realign EIFF with its host city, giving the festival the unique personality it has sorely lacked in recent years. “It is an Edinburgh festival, not a Stirling, Hobart or Timbuktu festival. It needs to, as often as it can, celebrate that which is this city. That doesn’t necessary mean landmarks; it can be cultural and educational institutions as well.” The upshot of this includes Reel Science, a strand of events and screenings in recognition of Edinburgh’s reputation as “Britain’s crucible of scientific innovation,” and (problematically in my opinion) its role as “guardians of an important and historic military tradition” is celebrated with the new Conflict | Reportage sidebar.

Mullighan’s biggest hurdle in overcoming his critics, perhaps, is the programme’s sixty-three feature films – half last year’s number. At first glance, the reduction in quantity hasn’t led to an increase in quality. Particularly weak are the British offerings: Page Eight, the directorial comeback of David Hare after a twenty-year break isn’t quite as tantalising as Lynne Ramsey’s return after her relatively short nine-year hiatus with We Need to Talk About Kevin, a film many expected to make an appearance given that its producer and star, Tilda Swinton, is an EIFF patron. But there are gems to be found: filmmaking legend Béla Tarr will be in town in June, not only with his latest (and perhaps last) film, The Turin Horse, but also with a trio of little seen Hungarian films that he has personally curated. There’s also a shift towards documentary (a genre that EIFF has a long tradition of programming well), thanks to its new partnership with Sheffield Doc/Fest. But there’s no denying that much of the content of this new-look festival is slightly flimsy and unfocused.

There’s more to a festival's success, however, than a bursting catalogue of films. Film festivals live or die by something that can’t be gleaned just yet from this obviously hastily put together programme, a quality more ethereal than star names and award winning directors – atmosphere. Mullighan agrees: “The screening venues we have, the atmosphere we will generate, the other things that we will put on around the feature films premiering in the programme will be more than enough compensation for the chucking into the skip of a tired old red carpet.”

EIFF, in recent years, has branded itself the “festival of discovery.” How ironic that in the year it drops this misleading moniker it becomes just that?