I AM BREATHING to screen as part of the 2013 Edinburgh Film Festival, kicking off a Global Screening Day

Critically-acclaimed feature documentary I AM BREATHING will raise money and awareness for Global Motor Neurone Disease Awareness Day on 21st June 2013 through a global screening day, launching with the UK Premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival the previous day (20th June 2013). Scottish Documentary Institute (SDI) and the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) will collaborate to promote awareness and raise funds with cinema and community screenings of the film all over the world on 21st June 2013.  Participating so far are the Balkans, Australia, USA, Finland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Russia and New Zealand.

I Am Breathing is the hard-hitting story of Neil Platt – a thirty-three-year-old Yorkshireman who contracted Motor Neurone’s Disease. Paralyzed from the neck down with only months to live, he tells his story to help raise awareness around his devastating disease and dedicates the film to his one-year-old son Oscar.  Collaborating with filmmakers Emma Davie and Morag McKinnon onI Am Breathing, he used his remaining months to communicate about his illness. He also wrote a blog and committed himself to playing a part in making MND history by inspiring a community of people to join the fight.

I Am Breathing is a co-production between SDI Productions and Danish Documentary, with investments by Creative Scotland, Danish Film Institute, Wellcome Trust, MND Association and the former UK Film Council. Broadcasters involved in the production are Channel 4, DR (Denmark) and YLE (Finland).

Directors Morag McKinnon and Emma Davie of I Am Breathing said: “When we started filming with Neil, it was very much from his initiative.  He put out a request in his blog for anyone involved in the media to come and speak to him. We planned initially to make a short film for MND but somehow his ambition, honesty and desire to communicate pushed it to be a much bigger film. I Am Breathing, like the blog is about creating community around this horrendous disease –reminding us of a humanity in the midst of such suffering. This community grows with every screening – just as Neil planned.”

Farah Nazeer, Director of External Affairs for MNDA, said: “We know that raising awareness of MND is incredibly important to our members. I Am Breathing gives us a unique opportunity to reach out and educate people with no previous knowledge of the disease.”

Sonja Henrici, Producer of I Am Breathing said: "We love exploring new partnerships with festivals, organisations, venues and audiences. MNDA has believed in our film from the start, and through them we initiated the Global Screening Day to coincide with the MND/ALS Global Awareness Day. We are excited that Edinburgh, where Neil and Louise met, will be the hub of our Global Screening Day in partnership with Edinburgh International Film Festival. These collaborations are essential for experimenting with such a multi-platform release. We are keen to hear from other people and organisations who want to participate and expand the vision of this release.”

Chris Fujiwara, Artistic Director of EIFF, said, “We’re proud to host the premiere of this shattering film. I Am Breathing is a documentary that says a great deal, with great eloquence and heart, about the ability of humanity to sustain and express itself under the most terrible limitations.”

For more information about how you can play your part in supporting awareness for I AM BREATHING Global Screening Day and to host your own screening of the film, go to www.iambreathingfilm.com/global

www.iambreathingfilm.com

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Edinburgh Film Festival To Screen Jean Grémillon Reptrospective, Audience Award

Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) today announced one of the Festival’s Retrospective subjects for 2013, Jean Grémillon, along with the return of the popular Audience Award, which was last awarded in 2010.

In partnership with the BFI, EIFF 2013 will celebrate the work of French director Jean Grémillon. Known for some of the most highly regarded French films of the German Occupation, Jean Grémillon is still to receive his due as one of the creative geniuses of French cinema. His work, which bridges the avant-garde and poetic realism, is full of resonances with several of the major artistic movements of the 20th Century. From his cinematic debut in the 1920s, one of the most fertile periods of French filmmaking, his work is imbued with the values of French impressionist cinema. Grémillon made the transition from silent to sound cinema, and his early sound films are notable for their innovative and imaginative use of music and sound effects. His late documentary shorts reflect his continuing experimentation with the medium of film and his strong links to the avant-garde and the other arts. The 2013 EIFF retrospective will highlight these links and Grémillon's use of sound and music, while also positioning these elements in relation to his better-known work.

The Retrospective will include Grémillon's most famous films, including the Occupation-era classics REMORQUES (Stormy Waters; 1940), LUMIÈRE D'ÉTÉ (Summer Light; 1942), and LE CIEL EST À VOUS (The Sky Is Yours; 1944), together with key examples of his imaginative silent work such as MALDONE (1928) and GARDIENS DE PHARE (The Lighthouse Keepers; 1929). The legendary French actor Jean Gabin, who stars in REMORQUES, also appears in another rarely screened Grémillon film that will be part of the Retrospective, GUEULE D'AMOUR (Lady Killer; 1937). Titles will screen at EIFF in June 2013, and then throughout July at BFI Southbank, London.

EIFF Artistic Director Chris Fujiwara said: "Retrospectives can change people's understanding of film history by shining the spotlight on artists who, for whatever reason, have been neglected and undervalued. Jean Grémillon is such a director. The contemporary of Jean Renoir and Marcel Carné, he is also their artistic peer, a brilliant and original filmmaker whose works hold up today as stunningly modern. He can even be called a director who is still waiting to be discovered. I'm excited to be working with the BFI to bring these incredible films to British audiences."

The revival of EIFF’s Audience Award, returning after a 2-year absence, was also announced today. A popular award with the public, filmmakers and distributors alike, the EIFF Audience Award also offers a unique sponsorship opportunity at this year’s Festival. Last awarded in 2010 to Aaron Schneider’s GET LOW, other past winners include THE SECRET OF KELLS (2009); MAN ON WIRE (2008); TSOTSI (2005) and AMELIE (2001).

Embracing the Festival’s ongoing commitment to engage audiences in discussion of the art and the future of cinema, the Audience Award programme will solicit and publish audience commentary via online forums. Selected audience participants will also be invited to the Festival’s Awards Ceremony. Voted for by cinema-goers attending public screenings, films will be eligible from across the Festival at the discretion of the Artistic Director.