Fringe of Colour is an initiative dedicated to supporting people of colour at the

Edinburgh festivals __NOTOC__ This is a list of arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland. The city has become known for its festivals since the establishment in 1947 of the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh F ...

, in particular the

Edinburgh Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

. In 2020 and 2021, due to the effect of the

Covid-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

on the creative industries, the festival went online with Fringe of Colour Films. The director of Fringe of Colour is Jess Brough.

History

Fringe of Colour was founded by Jess Brough in 2018 as a way to combat what they termed the "overwhelming whiteness" of the Edinburgh Festivals. When Brough first attended the festivals they noted that “I was looking for work by black performers and finding it really difficult.” Fringe of Colour began as a publicly accessible database of Edinburgh festival shows by "Black and Brown Artists/Artists of Colour" (as Brough termed it), alongside a free ticket scheme aiming to make these shows accessible to young people of colour. This scheme has been compared to Tobi Kyeremateng’s

Black Ticket Project Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

, based in London. In 2019, Brough received the

Total Theatre Award Total Theatre Awards were first presented in 1997 and are given annually at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to companies excelling in devised theatre, live art, visual performance, mime, puppetry, physical theatre, experimental theatre, dance, cl ...

for Significant Contribution, Dave’s Edinburgh Comedy Panel Prize Award and the Creative Edinburgh Independent Award for the work of Fringe of Colour. In 2019 the scheme distributed over 500 tickets to young people of colour. The Covid-19 pandemic affected the delivery of Fringe of Colour, which as a result went online. Fringe of Colour Films streamed over 40 films by people of colour during August 2020, and 23 films during August 2021. Both years, Fringe of Colour Films invited writers to respond to the films screened as part of their Responses programme.{{Cite web, title=Fringe of Colour reveal 2021 film programme - The Skinny, url=https://www.theskinny.co.uk/festivals/edinburgh-festivals/film/fringe-of-colour-2021-film-programme, access-date=2021-10-06, website=www.theskinny.co.uk, language=en

Programme

In 2020, the film programme included, among others,

Athena Kugblenu Athena Kugblenu (; born 14 November 1981) is a British stand-up comedian and writer. Early life Kugblenu describes herself as mixed-race: half Indo-Guyanese and half Ghanaian. She worked as a project manager in London before breaking into comedy ...

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and

Hannah Lavery Hannah Lavery (born 1977) is a Scottish short story writer, poet, playwright and performer. Her poetry and prose has been published by '' Gutter Magazine'', ''The Scotsman'' newspaper, ''404 Ink'', and others. In September 2021 she took on the r ...

. In 2021, the film programme was curated around four themes: Protest, Flight, Rituals and Self. It included, among others,

Thulani Rachia Thulani (meaning: the quiet one) is a South African given name that may refer to *Thulani Davis (born 1949), American playwright, journalist, librettist, novelist, poet, and screenwriter *Thulani Hlatshwayo (born 1989), South African football defend ...

Sekai Machache Sekai Machache is a visual artist and curator who lives in Glasgow, Scotland, and works internationally. She works primarily in photography and seeks to interrogate the notion of self. Biography Sekai Machache was born in 1989 in Harare, Zimba ...

, and

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References

Film festivals in Edinburgh