🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 15-21 Nov 2023

Welcome to the 20th edition of the Culture Minute, a weekly round-up of Edinburgh’s local creative news, events, jobs and opportunities. It’s for paying subscribers only, so thank you for supporting this. To try and organise things, I’ve added topic sections this week. Please ‘like’ the post or comment below if you’ve got any feedback on the format. I’m all ears!

🍿  Film 

🎬  Paul Ridd has been announced as the new director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. He is currently head of acquisitions with Cameo owner Picturehouse and has advised programming for film festivals in London and the Czech Republic. - Brian Ferguson, The Scotsman.

"In the coming months I look forward to assembling a team to deliver the festival, working closely with Andrew Macdonald and the new board to launch something fresh and different for the global scene." - Paul Ridd. 

🎞  Organisers of the bid to reopen The Filmhouse cinema are hosting a live discussion this evening from 6pm. They say: “Join our information and discussion event for a sneak peek at our progress and plans.” Tune in here: 

🎬   Documentary film TISH, by Edinburgh-based director Paul Sng, comes to The Cameo on 24 November. “Tish Murtha’s photography of people on the margins of society in Thatcher’s Britain challenged inequality, yet she was unable to escape the poverty she documented and died aged 56, her work relatively unknown. TISH follows her daughter revisiting key images and moments in her mother’s life to establish her legacy.” - Listing details are here.
  ⮑  Coinciding with the film’s release is a Document Your Community photo project open to all. It encourages people to take photos of their local community and share them for display on the British Culture Archive. - Here’s how to get involved: ‘Post on Instagram and tag #tishmurthafilm with a line or story about what your photo is about. You can also submit your photo via contact@britishculturearchive.co.uk’

🎥  If you’ve got an idea for a script or want to work in film in any capacity, See It On Screen could help. It’s a local production group that fund-raises to help people get their visions on to screens. Their latest project is detailed here. Thanks to Archie of See It On Screen for getting in touch to share this video. Archie says: “We know it’s a tough time to be starting a creative career. But if you support us, we’ll support you. 

✍️  Writing

📗  Award-winning film producer Leslie Hills has written a book about the fascinating people who’ve all lived at the same address in the New Town. Her debut book is ‘10 Scotland Street - an opinionated history of one house over two centuries’. It has a foreword by Val McDermid. Leslie describes it as:

“The story of an Edinburgh home & its cast of booksellers, silk merchants, sailors, preachers, politicians, cholera, coincidence and connections over two centuries to the Caribbean, Irkutsk, Calcutta, Sydney.” 

  ⮑  Leslie will be joined for the book’s launch event on Friday 1 December by bestselling author Sara Sheridan, who says: “This is a triumph - a love letter to the ghosts of Edinburgh.” - Details of the launch event are here on the Topping Books website.

📚  A new fantasy genre exhibition has opened at the Central Library. It’s organised by the Living Knowledge Network, which has upcoming live streams including ‘Why We Need Fantasy’ and ‘The Worlds of Terry Pratchett’, each featuring Neil Gaiman. 

📚  Book Week Scotland continues this week until Sunday 19 November. - The full programme is here.

✍️  Writers’ workshops part of the Cymera Writers’ Conference on Saturday 18 November. Among the speakers: Marcus Gipps, Publishing Director at Gollancz, Cat Clarke, Gavin Inglis and Robbie MacNiven. - See the full programme here.

🔊  The latest EHFM Culture Show puts the spotlight on this month’s Push The Boat Out poetry festival. - Hosts Katie Hawthorne and Katie Goh interview director Emma Collins. 
  ⮑  Push The Boat Out runs from 24-26 November at Summerhall. See the full programme here.

🎤  Argonaut Books on Leith Walk is hosting its next spoken word night on Monday.

🤸‍♀️  Stage 

🎭  Here’s what’s happening this week in local theatres via Thom Dibdin of All Edinburgh Theatre: 

“A great week for local Edinburgh amateur and grassroots theatre this week, that really demonstrates the range of shows produced in Edinburgh. The big noise is the Edinburgh Gang Show at the Festival and a cast of 122, I counted in last night’s finale, plus a stage full of cubs and brownies who only appear in the first act. Up in Leith there is Citadel Arts Group with Ghosts of North Leith, inspired by gravestones in North Leith Burial Ground; out west, Saughtonhall Drama Group is celebrating its 75th anniversary year with a “Trilogy of Comedies”; and later in the week, Bare Productions is trialling preview performances of a new musical, No Spray No Lay in the centre of town.” 
  ⮑  Full listings for the week are here.

🎤  Rockin’ The Suburbs hero Ben Folds plays the Usher Hall on Saturday night. - The stage times and tickets are here.

🎹  Deep Time, Fruitmarket’s four-night festival of new music commissions and performances begins on Thursday. - The full listings are here.

🔊  Cowgate venue Sneaky Pete’s has been praised by DJ and producer Erol Alkan as ’the perfect space’.
⮑  The venue’s listings are here.

🎨  Arts 

🖌  Five local women artists and makers are exhibiting their work at Coburg House this weekend. The Parallels group exhibition features work by Sarah Kwan, Jenni Colquhoun, Solii Brodie, Fiona Luing and Anna Gormezano Marks. They say: “After meeting on a Creative Edinburgh business growth course in early 2019, we look back on the changes and evolution of our individual practices side by side and celebrate each other's wins.” - Here’s a preview from Solii who kindly got in touch to share the details.

🗺  Thanks also to illustrator Jenni Colquhoun for also getting in touch with details of the upcoming Leith Creative Trail: “In early December my studio have Open Studios which is a brilliant (if I do say so myself) event and we're part of the Leith Creative Trail which is 15 venues all doing creative Christmassy fun stuff on the 2nd December.” 
  ⮑  It’s a chance to get some festive shopping done at Leith's markets and Open Studios on Saturday 2 December, guided by a map drawn by Jenni. - The full interactive map and list of participating venues is here.

🖼  Patriothall Gallery artists in Stockbridge will be having their open studios on Saturday and Sunday 2 and 3 December. There will be 30 artists’ studios open, plus a mixed exhibition in the main gallery. More details can be found on their Instagram page. Thanks to reader Jill MacLeod for getting in touch. 

🎨 The new Summerhall Arts organisation has announced its first visual arts exhibition season: “FORM : a season of exhibitions by female contemporary sculptors, showcases the work of Camila Ospina Gaitán in 'An Uncanny Feeling That She Was Being Watched', Mella Shaw in 'Sounding Line', Emma Hislop in 'What is Left Behind', Yumiko Ono in 'Composition IV‘ and Rowan Walker in 'Foreign Objects'. The season will occupy the Summerhall galleries and will run from the 1st of December 2023 until the 25th of February 2024.”

🤹‍♀️  Creative community events

🫧  The next Soapbox for creatives event is a collaboration with the 5Things series. It’s on Tuesday 28 November between 8am-10am at Sierra Metro on Ferry Road. - Free tickets are here. Learn more about 5Things here and Soapbox here. 

🏆  The Creative Edinburgh Awards are on Friday at The Biscuit Factory. - Tickets are here.

📆  The Spit It Out project’s AGM is on Saturday at Summerhall.

🧘‍♀️  Ailsa Lochhead (a Creative Edinburgh Freelancer Award winner) is the next speaker at Creative Mornings on Friday 24 November. “You will receive silent disco headsets so that music and Ailsa’s live guidance come straight to your ears, which creates a feeling of safety, intimacy, and fun”. - Details on getting involved are here.

🤝  Networking, jobs and funding opportunities: