Gavin Miller, CEO Centre for the Moving Image (CMI) announced today that actor and cultural activist Tilda Swinton and curator, filmmaker and author Mark Cousins have joined the CMI as Creative Advisors.
The Centre for the Moving Image was created in 2010 as the new parent body incorporating the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh Filmhouse and Edinburgh Film Guild.
The CMI will act as a hub offering a platform for entertainment and inspiration across all multi moving image sectors including cinema, television, online and gaming. It will run and operate its own brands and businesses as well as provide its partners with access to a wider business to business and business to consumer audience and network.
Swinton and Cousins will work with and shape a creative vision for the CMI as it builds and evolves its ambition as a national focus for curation, research, enterprise, knowledge and educational resources for film and the wider moving image space in Scotland and the UK. The CMI recently brought Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh Filmhouse and the Film Guild under a single operating umbrella.
Cousins and Swinton have been working together for three years bringing their enthusiasm for film to audiences in Scotland. In 2008 they arrived in Nairn for the Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams and in 2009 they created A Pilgrimage Film Festival around the Scottish Highlands pulling a mobile cinema screen. In the same year they created ‘Scottish Cinema of Dreams’ in China, a showcase for Scottish film brought to Chinese audiences. Earlier this year at the Edinburgh International Film Festival they launched their 8 ½ Foundation; a Scottish-based not-for-profit organisation dedicated to introducing world cinema to children.
As Creative Advisors, Swinton and Cousins will also contribute ideas to both Filmhouse and the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Tilda has been a patron of the EIFF since 2007 and Mark held the position of Artistic Director of the Festival from 1995 to 1996 giving them both unique insights and knowledge of the Festival.
In a statement the pair said: "The CMI is a body set up in a spirit of real cultural celebration towards vibrant cinema literacy that can be seen as dynamically accessible to all of us. We are very proud of Scotland for initiating the great opportunity that the CMI is. It is a real honour for us to be invited to take part in helping to hold the course of this spirit.”
Gavin Miller said: “We’re very excited about the future for Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh International Film Festival and the CMI, building on their creative and cultural heritage and looking forward to a new phase of bold and innovative ideas and initiatives for all to experience and enjoy”.
“Their previous initiatives demonstrate their creativity, passion and dedication to audiences old and young; ensuring everyone has the opportunity to enjoy and embrace cinema and the moving image."