The Screen Academy Scotland (A Skillset Film Academy) is a collaboration between
Edinburgh Napier University
, mottoeng = Without knowledge, everything is in vain
, established = 1992 – granted University status 1964 – Napier Technical College
, type = Public
, academic_staff = 802
, administrative_staff = 562
, chancellor = Will Whitehorn
, ...
and
Edinburgh College of Art
Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...
. It was opened in August 2005 by the then First Minister of Scotland,
Jack McConnell
Jack Wilson McConnell, Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale, (born 30 June 1960) is a Scottish politician who served as First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland from 2001 to 2007. McConnell served as the Minister fo ...
, and is based in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...
. Both Edinburgh Napier and ECA already had established film making courses, Napier's combined photography and film undergraduate BA launched
Cannes
Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The ...
prizewinner
Lynne Ramsay
Lynne Ramsay (born 5 December 1969) is a Scottish film director, writer, producer, and cinematographer best known for the feature films '' Ratcatcher'' (1999), ''Morvern Callar'' (2002), '' We Need to Talk About Kevin'' (2011), and '' You Were N ...
on her journey to film directing. The Academy offers practical, project-based, postgraduate courses. A new Production Centre was opened in August 2006 by Napier Honorary Graduate
Tilda Swinton
Katherine Matilda Swinton (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress. Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition t ...
. The Academy's first Director is Robin MacPherson FRSA, a BAFTA-nominated producer and formerly Development Executive for Scottish Screen, now Professor of Screen Media at Edinburgh Napier University where he is also Director of its Institute for Creative Industries and a board member of Creative Scotland.
Sir Sean Connery, Brian Cox and
Dame Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Regarded as one of Britain's best actresses, she is noted for her versatile work in various films and television programmes encompassing several genres, as well as for her ...
are patrons of the Academy.
The Academy is one of three UK centres of excellence in film practice education recognised by Creative Skillset (the Sector Skills Council for Creative Media) as a Skillset Film Academy. In November 2008 the Academy at Edinburgh Napier University was admitted to full membership of
CILECT The International Association of Film and Television Schools (French: ''Centre international de liaison des écoles de cinéma et de télévision'', CILECT) is the association of the world's major film and television schools.Trainspotting' and '
28 Days Later
''28 Days Later'' is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of a highly contagiou ...
' producers Andrew MacDonald and Iain Smith (who is also a member of the Screen Academy Board) and Iranian Director Seyyed Reza Mir-karami.
Films by Academy graduates have won numerous prizes and been screened at festivals worldwide including
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
,
Kolkata
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
,
Tribeca
Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stree ...
and
Beijing
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Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...
.
Students or graduates of the Academy have won the Page Screenwriting Awards Gold Prize for Short Film in three of the past four years, the most recent winner being Amy Rich in 2010. Michael Cumes took the Gold Prize in 2009 with The Romance Class. In 2007, David Bishop won with Danny’s Toy’s. Chico Pereira's feature documentary 'Pablo's Winter' won Best Student Documentary at IDFA in 2012 and the President's Award at the Full Frame Festival in 2013.
In addition to offering a range of degree programmes the Academy also hosts professional summerschools such as 'The Soundtrack', in partnership with industry training partners such as The School of Sound, its journalism programmes are accredited by the Broadcast Journalism Training Council (BJTC).
In 2007 and every year since the Academy was awarded funding by the EU MEDIA programme for its international writer, director and producer development programme ENGAGE which is a collaboration with the
National Film School of Ireland
The National Film School of Ireland is part of the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology
Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology ( ga, Institiúid Ealaíona, Dearadh agus Teicneolaíochta Dhún Laoghaire), mor ...
, the Baltic Film and Media School, Tallinn, Estonia and
Aalto University
Aalto University ( fi, Aalto-yliopisto; sv, Aalto-universitetet) is a public research university located in Espoo, Finland. It was established in 2010 as a merger of three major Finnish universities: the Helsinki University of Technology, the ...
in Finland. The programme runs on an annual basis with workshops in each of the partner countries. In 2011 the ENGAGE partnership was awarded EU MEDIA MUNDUS funding to extend its programme to include non-EU countries including Canada, China and India.
Alumni
Notable alumni of Screen Academy Scotland include
Lin Anderson
Lin (Linda) Anderson (born in Greenock, Scotland) is a Tartan Noir crime novelist and screenwriter, best known as the creator of forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod. the Rhona MacLeod books are being developed for ITV.
Life and career
Ander ...
the writer and filmmaker
Basil Khalil
Basil Khalil is a British-Palestinian filmmaker. Khalil's film ''Ave Maria'' was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.
Early life
Khalil was born and raised in Nazareth, to a Palestinian father and a British mother.
Car ...