Most workplaces aren't exactly buzzing on the first day back after the Festive break. This isn't the case at Festival HQ.

No long faces or tired expressions here. There are only five months until the 62nd EIFF programme launch and it's a hive of activity.

"The change to June in 2008 has shaved a few months from our planning time,” explains Artistic Director Hannah McGill. “Sorting out the programme, booking guests, arranging the retrospectives - there’s a lot to do.

“It’s also incredibly invigorating. Everyone is very focussed and organised. We really hit the ground running this year.”

Hannah will cover close to 10,000 miles in the next six weeks as she endeavours to source the best in new cinema for this year’s Festival.

“I’m heading off to Sundance next week, and then I’ll have a few days in Edinburgh at the end of January before going to the Berlin Film Festival.

“We’ve traditionally programmed a lot of films from those festivals, so I’m really looking forward to discovering some great new talent.”

The search doesn’t end there. The EIFF programming team will be attending various festivals and ‘spotting’ films around the world.

“We’ll have programmers at the Rotterdam Film Festival and the Hungarian Film Week in the latter part of January, while we also have programming staff in Japan and the Middle East,” notes Hannah.

“The move to June has even allowed us to discover some new festivals, such as Anima, an animation event in Brussels.”

The programme for the 62nd EIFF will be announced on May 7th, in advance of the Cannes Film Festival, and Hannah is quick to point out that this will have no impact on quality.

“A lot of the product in Cannes, outside of the main competition, comes via Sundance and Berlin anyway. It doesn’t mean that everything showing there will be ruled out for us, just that we’ll see it in advance.

“For example, Control was one of the huge successes from the 2007 Festival, and we viewed that in London way before it screened at Cannes.

"We never relied on finding the bulk of our product from Cannes: it was always our last port of call, and there were often very few spaces left.”

The number of films already confirmed for this year’s Festival is already ‘in double figures’, and Hannah is delighted with the discoveries so far.

“I’m excited by the range of countries we’ve sourced film from. I’ve picked up films from three very different and quite unexpected territories, so that’s really inspiring.

“Combined with the usual high standard of submissions and some really exciting retrospective material, I think it’s going to be a special year.”

How special will the 62nd Edinburgh International Film Festival be? All will be revealed on May 7th.

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