The Edinburgh Film Guild (EFG) is a film society

Film society

A film society is a membership club where people can watch screenings of films which would otherwise not be shown in mainstream cinemas. In Spain they are known as "Cineclubs," and in Germany they are known as "Filmclubs"....

 based in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. Founded in 1929, it is notable as the oldest continually running film society in the world. Though pre-dated by the original (London) Film Society, founded five years earlier, it has outlasted it, with the Film Society having ceased operation in 1939. The EFG is also of note for having established the Edinburgh International Film Festival

Edinburgh International Film Festival

The Edinburgh International Film Festival is an annual fortnight of cinema screenings and related events taking place each June. Established in 1947, it is the world's oldest continually running film festival...

 in 1947.

According to Scottish film theorist

Film theory

Film theory is an academic discipline that aims to explore the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for understanding film's relationship to reality, the other arts, individual viewers, and society at large...

 and documentarian John Grierson

John Grierson

John Grierson was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. According to popular myth, in 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" to describe a non-fiction film.-Early life:Grierson was born in Deanston, near Doune, Scotland...

 the EFG was of particular importance for promoting a wide view of cinema

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

. Writing in 1951 he commented:

"The old London Film Society was the first to break from somewhat exclusive attention to the avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 and take the longer and harder way of the Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

ns and more purposive users of the cinema. 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".

Since 1980 the EFG has been based in the Filmhouse Cinema in Lothian Road, Edinburgh, where it has its clubrooms, office

Office

An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it ; the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the...

s and cinema.

Run by volunteers on a non-profit

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 basis, the EFG screens films three days a week from late September through to April. The programme is organised on the basis of mini-seasons linked by some common element, of director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

, performer, country, genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

 or theme.

Since 2005 the EFG has hosted the bi-annual Edinburgh International Film Audiences Conference.

External links

• http://edinburghfilmguild.org.uk/about.php A history of the Edinburgh Film Guild by critic Philip French
  Philip French
  Philip French is a British film critic and former radio producer.French, the son of an insurance salesman, was educated at the direct grant Bristol Grammar School, read Law at Oxford University. and post graduate study in Journalism at Indiana University, Bloomington on a scholarship.He has been...
  
  , emphasising its distinctive contributions to Scottish and UK film culture
• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-forsyth-hardy-1438984.html Newspaper obituary for Forsyth Hardy, a co-founder of the Edinburgh Film Guild and the Edinburgh International Film Festival