Revamped Edinburgh Film Festival Unveils Award Winners

The Edinburgh International Film Festival unveiled the winners of its new prize for feature filmmaking and award for short filmmaking late Wednesday night at the city’s Cameo Cinema.

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The Ceremony , directed by Jack King, was awarded The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, decided on by an audience vote and funded by The Connery Foundation. King beats nine others to win a substantial £50,000 ($64,000) prize to fund his future projects.

The Ceremony , shot entirely in black and white, follows two migrant workers forced to bury a colleague in the Yorkshire hills. When one demands to perform the dead man his rightful Islamic burial, nerves begin to fray and a righteous power struggle emerges.

King is a self-taught writer/director & film-maker from Bradford, Yorkshire. He started out making music videos for independent and major record labels, and his work has racked up repeated Vimeo staff picks and millions of views online. He has since made several short films, both publicly funded and independent, including Prints which was shot on location in Japan and premiered at Clermont Ferrand in 2019. His most recent short Predators was supported by BFI Network and nominated for a U.K. critics circle award earlier this year after premiering at BFI London Film Festival in 2023.

Overall, 10 feature-length world premieres were presented at EIFF as part of the competition.

The winner of The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence Competition was Manny Wolfe , directed by Trevor Neuhoff. In 1947, Wolf is an actor exhausted by Hollywood. He also happens to be a real werewolf. “After nonstop rejection, a chance encounter sets him up to get a role in a major monster movie. Does Manny sacrifice artistic integrity and take the job? Or is there another path?” a plot synopsis reads.

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A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2013, Trevor is a director, writer, producer and occasional actor. He spent almost a decade working for Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey. He joined Robert on many sets before serving as co-executive producer on Downey Jr.’s Max TV series Downey’s Dream Cars . He wins £15,000 ($20,000) to support future projects.

Festival director Paul Ridd said: “We are so pleased to be presenting these inaugural awards for excellence in filmmaking to two incredibly exciting films and filmmaking teams. These new EIFF awards were set up to support new and emerging filmmakers in their careers. Both these films show immense vision and skill at connecting with audiences and we wish both filmmakers the very best for the future.”

EIFF 2024 is supported by Screen Scotland and the BFI Audience Projects Fund, awarding National Lottery funding, the Industry Program is backed by EXPO funding from the Scottish Government through Creative Scotland, and EventScotland part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival ran Aug. 15-21. It opened with Saoirse Ronan’s The Outrun and closed with Blair Young & Carla J. Eastons Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands .

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