The black film community have lodged a very public complaint about under representation at this year's Edinburgh film festival.
An article in the Independent newspaper at the end of the week, Mr Manlike Shabazz accused programmers of EIFF 2001 of ignoring the work of black film-makers in picking this year's programme, a sentiment apparently shared by many more black filmmakers.
Film director Shabazz, also head of the first UK black film festival in September and editor of Blackfilmmaker magazine argued the problem was one of perspective and that the festival were blocking any appreciation of films from different cultures. He said, "They say they select films on the basis of what's good and what isn't, so by definition that means the films by black directors are not good enough. That's not acceptable in this day and age."
Head of programmes at Edinburgh Nicola Pierson, damned the accusation "We don't select films on the basis of the director's skin colour, we judge purely on the quality of the film. The directors can be any colour they like. The question we ask is `is it any good?"'
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The black film community have lodged a very public complaint about under representation at this year's Edinburgh film festival.