The Edinburgh TV Festival has announced the first sessions for this year’s Festival including an International Icon Interview with Whoopi Goldberg.

Led by 2021 Advisory Chair, Georgia Brown, this year’s Festival theme is ‘Accelerating Change’, and will see a focus on what and how change is happening in the TV business at every level, what can and does happen as a result of the issues being highlighted and discussed at the Festival and the need to make positive change happen.

The hybrid event will tale place between 23-26 August.

The only Black woman to have achieved the EGOT (winner of an EMMY, Grammy, Tony and Oscar), Whoopi Goldberg talks “candidly about her life on and off screen and her experiences as a multi-award winning artist, producer, author, entrepreneur and humanitarian. Goldberg will be characteristically frank in this one-on-one interview where she will share insight and anecdotes about a career spanning four decades. Who better to discuss how the entertainment industry has evolved, for better and worse and what it might look like in the future?”

We’re thrilled that Whoopi Goldberg is coming to the Edinburgh TV Festival,” said Creative Director, Stewart Clarke. “Across TV, film, and theatre her work resonates the world over and Whoopi truly embodies the ‘International Icon’ billing.

We are also eager to launch Spotlight,” he continued. “Our reimagined controller sessions which will bring a new, fresh approach to these hugely popular sessions and really dig into the industry trends that have a direct impact on commissioning.”

Spotlight On… The Festival’s flagship controller sessions will be changing to reflect the industry shift in commissioning. New ‘Spotlight’ sessions will feature one-on-one interviews with creative content chiefs and bosses including the Festivals’ Advisory Chair, Georgia Brown, Charlotte Moore, Ian Katz, Kevin Lygo, Marcus Arthur and Ben Frow.

Each will discuss their vision for their channels and platforms as well as addressing wider industry issues. The second instalment of the Spotlight sessions will see the commissioning and genre chiefs including Polly Hill, Sebastian Cardwell and Phil Edgar Jones, step in and give their take on programming trends and detailed updates on their specific content needs.

 

Jon Creamer

Share this story

Share Televisual stories within your social media posts.
Be inclusive: Televisual.com is open access without the need to register.
Anyone and everyone can access this post with minimum fuss.