NEW DELHI: As submissions opened this week, the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) announced that a German Focus celebrating the best in German cinema will be part of the Festival in 2014.

The new additions will include a ‘Gala’ strand which will present major UK premieres of both British and international films and a strand of family films entitled For the Family. Genre films and edgy fare from around the world will be featured in an even more adventurous and farther-reaching strand than the previous Night Moves, and the New Perspectives strand will showcase new fiction and documentary filmmaking that raises challenging questions about the medium.

Strands continued from 2013 include American Dreams; Director’s Showcase; Films on Film and the continuation of EIFF’s strand of films programmed by 16-to-19-year-old Young Programmers for their peers.  The Michael Powell Award and International Competition will continue at EIFF 2014 with titles selected from across the programme.

Continuing its long history of championing German cinema, next year EIFF will present a German Focus in partnership with German Films. Since the Festival’s inception in 1947, German films have regularly screened at EIFF. Major retrospectives and premieres of ground-breaking work by renowned German directors including Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, and Reinhard Hauff have brought German cinema to international attention.  The 2014 German Focus will include screenings of new and retrospective titles which will run parallel to a bespoke programme of Industry Events, with members of the German Film Industry in attendance. Further details of the German Focus will be announced in due course.

EIFF Artistic Director Chris Fujiwara said: “Building on the success of our 2013 Festival, we were keen to revisit how we structure the EIFF programme and especially the strands we use to help our audiences find the films they wish to see.  With the new strands to be introduced in 2014, we hope to make it easier for audiences to navigate the richness of our programme; to explore the work of the emerging filmmakers we champion at Edinburgh each year, and to celebrate unconventional filmmaking.  I’m also delighted to be working with German Films to bring together what will be an engaging and revealing selection of the best of new German cinema.”