At the 2013 Edinburgh International Film Festival, there is no free coffee in the press office. I’m sure there was some last year, but I could be wrong. The book festival press office certainly has free coffee, and pastries for that matter. But there is none at the film festival. This observation is worth stating, because it perfectly sums up the combination of under-appreciated privilege and undeserved entitlement that comes with being a press delegate for a small-circulation webzine.
“Why shouldn’t I get free coffee, after all?! Don’t I spend my June afternoons toiling in darkened cinemas, as the sun outside blazes freely? Don’t I, in return for my vital journalistic contribution to the event’s wider media coverage, deserve some fringe benefits out of respect for my position….as a writer?!”
Thus bellows my ego, its wounding aggravated by acute caffeine withdrawal. But a moment’s perspective brings a greater sense of humility. I am seeing dozens of films for free, long before anyone else in the UK (press aside) has the chance to. A press application from a webzine with such a relatively tiny readership could easily have been rejected by the behemothic EIFF, but instead they chose (for the second year running) to award us official accreditation. For this, I should be grateful. Not that I’m just here on a jolly – I am writing articles and reviews, after all – but I would do well to appreciate my privileged position next time I gaze longingly across the press office in vain search of liquid stimulant.
But, really, you’d think there’d be free coffee.
Jim Taylor will be wailing a lament this afternoon in the Filmhouse cafe. Especially if they don’t let him into the ‘Monsters University’ press screening, which is a genuine possibility.
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