Founded in 2000, the East End Film Festival is one of the UK’s largest film festivals. An annual multi-platform festival held in London, the EEFF presents a rich and diverse programme of international premieres, industry masterclasses, free pop-up screenings and immersive live events. The EEFF’s mission is to discover, support, and exhibit pioneering work by global and local independent filmmakers, and to introduce viewers to innovative and challenging cinematic experiences.

Attracting an annual audience of more than 30,000, the EEFF has established itself as a major international film festival situated at the heart of London’s most dynamic quarter, hosting an active year-round programme as well as producing its own fringe festival in CINE-EAST, a day of completely free cinema across 100 East London venues. Committed to the work of first and second time directors, the annual EEFF showcases more than seventy features film screenings, several short film programmes, and a variety of cross-arts events and industry activities across a six day festival. The EEFF’s established awards system includes: Best Film (reserved for first and second features); Best Documentary; Best UK Short Film; and the EEFF Short Film Audience Award. The EEFF 2012 jury featured Dexter Fletcher, Sandra Hebron, Adrian Wootton and Joe Wright.

The EEFF boasts large audiences, ever increasing industry support, high levels of international press coverage, and a large and incredibly diverse range of partnerships with organisations such as Amnesty International, Sheffield Doc/Fest, World Pride, Digital Shoreditch and Film London. The festival received unprecedented levels of attention in 2012, showcasing films to diverse, engaged audiences in record numbers.

EEFF 2013 takes place 25th June – 10th July 2013.

HISTORY

Originally founded in 2000 as a platform for filmmakers living and working in East London, the EEFF has since expanded to represent and showcase the very best of contemporary British, European and World cinema whilst retaining its commitment to one of the world’s most vibrant filmmaking communities. A festival of discovery, several films from previous editions of the EEFF have gone on to win international awards.

Previous guests of the EEFF include filmmakers Ken Russell (The Devils), Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting), Richard E. Grant (Withnail and I), Julian Temple (The Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle, Oil City Confidential) and Shekar Kapor (Elizabeth); Composers Michael Nyman (The Piano, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover) and Nitin Sawhney; producers Stephen Woolley (The Crying Game) and Andrew Macdonald, (Trainspotting, The Last King of Scotland); writers Tony Grisoni (Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas) and Ayub Khan Din (East is East); musicians from The Libertines to Annie Lennox; and artists ranging from Gilbert & George to Tracey Emin.

Previous festival screenings include the second ever UK screening of the Director’s Cut of The Devils, with director Ken Russell and members of the cast in attendance; Danny Boyle’s Millions, Richard E. Grant’s Wah Wah, and the restoration of Barney Platts-Mills’s mod classic Bronco Bullfrog; award-winning British documentaries including Jez Lewis’ Shed Your Tears and Walk Away, Nicola & Teena Colins’ The End, Julian Temple’s Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten and Jamie Jay Johnson’s Sounds Like Teen Spirit; and hard hitting, challenging foreign documentaries, including Roberto Hernández’s Presumed Guilty and the Oscar-winning Born Into Brothels. The EEFF also has a strong history of connecting the East End with Eastern Europe with premieres of award winning Polish films Mall Girls and Lejdis, and a 2012 retrospective of infamous Russian director Alexei Balabanov with Balabanov himself in attendance.

The EEFF is also committed to excavating the boundaries between cinema and other art forms, regularly hosting exhibitions, installations, spoken word and live music events in support of the festival’s main programme. Past highlights include Mark Donne’s The Rime of the Modern Mariner, an elegiac ode to Docklands culture, performed in the beautiful Hawksmoor church St Anne’s with a live orchestral score; a 50th Anniversary screening of Polish classic Mother Joan of the Angels in the Sir John Soane designed St. John on Bethnal Green; a special screening of the Limehouse-set silent classic Broken Blossoms accompanied by pianist Neil Brand; and special live performances from artists such as The Guillemots and Saint Etienne.