Image: Edinburgh Film Guild 2024-2025 Season publicity on the Institut français d’Ecosse website
Founded in 1930, the Edinburgh Film Guild has a long history of organising film festivals, screenings, and educational events, and has played a vital role in bringing cinema of all genres to the people of Edinburgh and the surrounding area. Our charitable aims are to promote and deliver film and education programmes across the city. The Guild is run entirely by volunteers. It will be the Guild’s 100th Anniversary in 2030. View our current season 2024-2025 at the Institut français d’Ecosse.
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Images (left to right): Exterior: Institut français d’Ecosse. Interior: Salle Émilienne Moreau-Evrard.
Institut français d’Écosse (French Institute of Scotland)
In recent years the Guild has held a number of film seasons at the Institut français d’Ecosse, having entered into a formal partnership with the Institut in 2021. The seasons: Our Screenings 2022-2023 > Our Screenings 2023-2024. > Our Screenings 2024-2025.
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Photos (left to right): Grassmarket Community Project. WHALE Arts Local Cinema Project
Community Cinema
In 2024/2025, we helped enable the Grassmarket Community Project and WHALE Arts Local Cinema Project to secure and enhance community cinema facilities in 9 screening locations within Edinburgh, from the Grassmarket to Wester Hailes. Supporting: Grassmarket Community Picture House / Supporting: The Local Cinema Project.
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Education
The Guild has organised or supported many educational initiatives over the years. We have held innumerable mini-seasons, introduced by experts and followed by post-film discussions and programme notes. We have also held or facilitated a wide range of lectures and short courses, including the University of Edinburgh’s Film and Media in-person short courses, some of which are taught by Guild members.
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History
The Edinburgh Film Guild is one of the world’s oldest continuously running film societies. The first General Meeting of the Guild was held on 27 October 1930. John Grierson (pioneering Scottish documentary filmmaker) wrote about the development of the Guild two decades after it was established, “The old London Film Society was the first to break from somewhat exclusive attention to the avant-garde… But it was the Edinburgh Film Guild which completed the movement – as the London Film Society did not – and saw the infinite variety of a Film Society’s obligations to all categories of the medium”.
Early generations of Guild members helped cinema become recognised as an art form. They also established the Guild’s physical and economic foundations, enabling succeeding generations of programmers to present “the infinite variety…of the medium” to new generations of audience members. ‘Twenty-one Years of Cinema‘ offers an invaluable overview of the Guild’s activities from 1930 to 1950 – including a comprehensive listing of all screenings, exhibitions, discussions and lectures held during the period.
Images (left to right): Guild Seasons 2023-2024, 1959-1960, 1931-1932
Some Guild programmes throughout the years: Guild 2nd Season 1931-1932, / Guild Season: 1946-1947, / Guild 30th Anniversary Season: 1959-1960 / Guild 40th Anniversary Season: 1969-1970, / Guild 60th Season: 1989-1990, / Guild Season: 2023-2024
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Edinburgh International Film Festival
Our predecessors at the Edinburgh Film Guild established, organised and administered the Edinburgh International Film Festival between 1947 and 1977. The Guild “continued to be responsible for [the Festival’s] existence until the 1970s when the size of the annual event made its organisation on a voluntary basis impractical (Guild Programme 1986-1987).” The Edinburgh International Film Festival is the longest-running film festival in the UK.
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Images (left to right): ‘Filmhouse’, Lothian Road (Photo: Sandy Gemmill). Guild Theatre, ‘Film House‘ 6-8 Hill Street. Illustration: Fourier and lounge ‘Film House’, 3 Randolph Crescent.
From ‘Film House’ to ‘Filmhouse’
The Edinburgh Film Guild was a key partner in establishing ‘Filmhouse’, which provided Edinburgh with a unique, arthouse and cultural cinema for more than 40 years. However, the Guild also created two culturally important ‘Film House’ homes long before Filmhouse existed. The Guild’s first two ‘Film House’ locations were home to Edinburgh’s first unofficial regional film theatres and the Edinburgh International Film Festival, for the first 31 years of its existence. See: From ‘Film House’ to ‘Filmhouse’
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Images (left to right): National Library of Scotland. Removal of part of the Guild Archive from the Filmhouse building, 2023. University of Stirling Library.
Guild’s Historical Archive
The Edinburgh Film Guild’s historical archive is a collection of materials stretching back to the late 1920s. It had been our intention, for several years, to transfer the various parts of the archive to institutions that could preserve, catalogue and make the archive more accessible to film researchers and others with an interest in cinema. We achieved that long-term goal in the Spring of 2023, with the bulk of our archive being transferred to the National Library of Scotland and the University of Stirling. See: Guild’s Historical Archive
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The Guild and the Film Society movement
For an excellent overview of the early days of the film society movement, the establishment of the Guild, and the pivotal contribution to Scottish film culture of Forsyth Hardy (co-founder of the Guild and the Festival) see ’A bit of History: Philip French on the Edinburgh Film Guild at the time of its 75th anniversary in 2004’ It was written by ‘Observer’ film critic Philip French, who was a great friend to the Guild.
90th Anniversary: Civic Reception
The City of Edinburgh Councillor Gillian Gloyer spoke in 2019 about the Edinburgh Film Guild’s contribution to the city’s cultural life over nine decades. The Lord Provost and other councillors agreed to hold a civic reception to mark the Guild’s 90th Season. (See: Council to throw a spotlight on the Edinburgh Film Guild, By Phyllis Stephen, The Edinburgh Reporter, 25 October 2019)
Formal Objectives and Status
“To encourage the study and advancement of the Art of the film, to foster public appreciation and study of it and to endeavour to increase public interest in the progressive applications of film.” (The Guild Memorandum of Association, March 1953)
The Edinburgh Film Guild is a Company Limited by Guarantee. Registered in Scotland.
Registered Company Number SC029406
Registered Charity Number SC041851
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