🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 22 - 28 May 2024

Welcome to the 46th edition of the Culture Minute, a weekly round-up of Edinburgh’s local creative news, events, jobs and opportunities. It exists thanks to the Minute’s wonderful paying subscribers.
📮 If I missed anything, please this form to get your creative things featured.

🆕  News & happenings this week

💰 Winners of the Keep it Fringe fund have been announced, with 180 acts receiving £2500 each. More than one in three come from a working-class background, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society said. Shona McCarthy said the fund will run again next year, adding: “We know that for many artists the financial challenges of putting on a show can prevent some from coming to the Fringe, and this funding will enable the Edinburgh Fringe to be more accessible to artists from across the UK.” - Full details are here.

🤹 The Imaginate Edinburgh International Children’s Festival begins on Saturday and runs until Sunday 2 June. A key part of the festival is Saturday’s day of free pop-up performances in the National Museum of Scotland, between 10am and 5pm.
⮑ The programme can be searched and filtered by age-range or date here.
⮑ The festival includes a performance of ‘The Boy Who Couldn’t Sit Still’ by Cecilia Thoden van Velzen and Cameron Prince, as announced in the video below by members of Pilton Youth & Children’s Project. The 15-minute show will be performed multiple times on Saturday in the museum’s Grand Gallery.

🎭 The National Theatre of Scotland has announced details of three shows it will present during this August’s festival. - Theatre Weekly.

🇵🇸 A diverse lineup of films by Palestinian filmmakers spanning a variety of genres, from animation to documentary and drama, make up the Falastin Film Festival. It begins this week, running on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Creators and directors will also be at Q&A sessions, aiming to ‘foster dialogue and understanding for all’. - The full film programme is here and a list of the festival’s other events is here.

🖌️ The deadline for Summerhall’s annual courtyard commission project is 5pm on 31 of May. - Get involved here.

🎨 It’s a double-launch at Sett Studios on Leith Walk this week, with artists-in-residence Liza Shackleton and François Giro showing their work. - Full details are here. Thanks to Ericka Duffy for sharing this.

🎭 What’s on Edinburgh’s stages this week?

Here’s Thom Dibdin of All Edinburgh Theatre:

It's a big week for Edinburgh companies. The amateur groups have four very different productions, there's an immersive show from grassroots company Citadel along the Union Canal, magic from Kevin Quantum and a last chance to see Macbeth (an undoing) at the Lyceum.

The big amateur show is from Southern Light with the 76 trombones musical The Music Man at the Festival (ends Sat: tickets). And we do mean big - big cast, big stage and big tunes to boot.

On a pure theatre front there are two equally fascinating productions from two stalwarts of the scene.

EGTG, the Grads, have Philip Ridley’s second play, The Fastest Clock in the Universe, a dark and vicious drama about ageing, love, delusion and enablement at Assembly Roxy (Ends Sat: tickets).

Local playwright Andy Moseley has reworked JB Priestley for EPT in An(other) Inspector Calls at the Church Hill Theatre (ends Sat: tickets), setting it in 2020 in a Highlands retreat.

For complete contrast the St Serf's Players have Peter Quilter's 2004 comedy Curtain Up at the Inverleith St Serf’s Church Centre (Thurs-Sat: tickets). While Citadel explore the history and people of the Union Canal in Tales from the Towpath (Thurs-Sat: details).

Two big professional shows on offer: at the Lyceum it is the last chance to see Zinnie Harris's Shakespeare retake: Macbeth (an undoing) (ends Sat: tickets); while the Traverse has Silent Uproar's tour of coming-of-age punk cabaret show Dead Girls Rising (ends Thurs: tickets).

On Saturday it's Family Encounters the free opening event of the Edinburgh International Children's Festival at the Museum of Scotland (Sat: details). There are EICF shows across Edinburgh all next week too (details).

And to round it all off, Mr Quantum is doing his close-up prestidigitatation in Edinburgh Magic at the Waldorf (Sat: tickets) and Northern Ballet bring their kids ballet, The Tortoise & the Hare to the Festival (Sun: tickets).

Opening on Tuesday 28, before the next Culture Minute drops on Wednesday, Sunset Song is at the Lyceum (tickets) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is at the Playhouse (tickets).

Æ's full listings and preview is here: Preview & Listings Mon 20 – Sun 26 May 2024.

📌  Culture Minute news from the Community Noticeboard

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📌 “Cinetopia's next Doc Club screening is the Edinburgh premiere of Mark Cousins' The March On Rome, at Cameo Cinema, 26th May at 4pm - followed by a Q&A with Mark in person. Through little-seen archival material and his characteristically cinematic analysis, Mark Cousins narrates the ascent of fascism in Italy and its fall-out across 1930s Europe. In The March on Rome, which is simultaneously an essay film and a historical document, Cousins contextualises history through the here and now, holding a mirror up to a political landscape marked by a creeping far right and manipulated media.” - You can get your tickets here.

📌 “The Edinburgh Pitch is Scotland's only pitching forum, welcoming non-fiction storytellers from all over the world to raise finances for urgent, visionary projects. The Observer Pass allows all-day access to the public pitch on Tuesday 28 May. An opportunity to discover bold, thought-provoking documentaries in the making and connect with industry leaders from MUBI, Netflix, Doc Society, Sundance Festival and many more!” - More details here from Scottish Documentary Institute.

📌 “The Chicken Coop Writing Group returns to Lost in Leith Bar & Fermentaria on Tuesday, May 28 from 6-8 pm. Join our curious, passionate creative community for some writing time with prompts designed to help you get words on paper provided by host Naomi Head. Tickets are pay-what-you-can with a minimum suggested donation of £3.” - More details here from Naomi Head, host of The Chicken Coop Writing Group.

🤝  Networking, jobs and funding opportunities

Here are the new opportunities, followed by the ‘still open’ list: 

🎪 Underbelly has begun its summer recruitment for the Edinburgh festivals. Available jobs include Fringe Photographer, Sound Technician, Press Assistant, Street Team Staff, Venue Stage Managers, Bar Staff, Box Office Managers, Lighting and more. If you want to join the army of people who make the festival happen, this is the link you need.