Edinburgh Sucks! | Council stabs Leith in the back

City Council

Council stabs Leith in the back

By The Basa ⋅ May 23, 2005 ⋅

Ricky Henderson, Edinburgh City Council’s culture chief has stabbed Leith in the back by digging up an extra £60,000 for the Film Festival but only last week turning down the Leith Festival for an increase of £5,000 over their previous £5,000 grant and indeed cutting their grant down to £2,500.

It seems that the City Center festivals will get as much money as possible because that’s where the Councillor’s spend their time and have the chance to meet the big stars. However, local community festivals get the crumbs on the plate.

Councillor Ricky Henderson, Edinburgh City Council’s leisure chief, said: “The council is pleased to work in partnership with the Scottish Executive and Scottish Screen to provide additional financial support to enable the 2005 film festival to be a significant success.”

Slimeball Leith Councillor Gordon Munro should be up in arms about this, but I suppose he has already been bought out by a couple of free VIP tickets.

Last August’s International Film Festival, the 58th in its history, was criticised by the film magazine Empire for failing to pull enough big names. In 2001, Kate Winslet, Dougray Scott and Saffron Burrows turned up for the international premiere of the wartime thriller Enigma, but this has proved the exception in recent years.

The Venice Film Festival last year attracted visits from Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie and Tom Cruise, while Edinburgh drew Ewen Bremner, Billy Connolly and the Edinburgh author, Ian Rankin.

So major sponsors pull out of the Film Festival and the Executive and Council are willing to step directly into their shoes and send the local community festivals to the trash.

More Info:
£265,000 aid package saves film festival as a top event
Council Slash for Leith Festival
Leith Festival cuts ‘an insult’