Happening @ University of Edinburgh’s Inspace Gallery, Thu 16 June

The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) is rapidly approaching, and today’s programme launch will no doubt provoke some excited discussion about film and its associated industries. To give these discussions a home of their own, a new innovative debate in cinematic discourse has been unveiled by EIFF. Running alongside the festival programme, Project: New Cinephilia will be fronted by leading names in international film journalism and will lead to a day-long event of talks and workshops.

Primarily an online conversation of essays, thoughts and ideas from critics, writers, bloggers and film makers, remote contributors will be publishing work online from today in association with online cinema site MUBI. Chaired by Jigsaw Lounge founder Neil Young and Michael Koresky – editorial manager at The Criterion Collection and co-founding editor of Reverse Shot – visiting journalists such as Eric Hynes and Jeff Reichart will take part in roundtable discussions. There will be further contributions from a wide variety of film industry names, including Chris Fujiwara, Girish Shambu and Leah Churner to name but a few.

In a culmination of these online activities, Project: New Cinephilia will host six interactive sessions, open to everyone from bloggers to film lovers. Topics include new critical approaches to reading film; discussions on how film is consumed in the 21st-century and the role of cinema in our daily lives; and a master class on how to start your own fanzine, blog or film journal. And if fun and competition is what you thrive fear not; the day will end in a Film Critic Deathmatch for the best 140-character review on Twitter.