The Old Town Festival 2009 (15-28 June) is a lively two-week celebration of people and place. Storytelling, talks and tours, film, music, open days and family events at partner venues across Edinburgh’s Old Town explore the area’s rich history of homes and communities and showcase the Old Town’s wealth of cultural activity. The Festival is coordinated by the Scottish Storytelling Centre and is supported by Edinburgh World Heritage. This years Old Town Festival is about`Home` with the stories of the Old Town`s unique houses and buildings, and the people who have made the Old Town their place.
SOOT have organised 4 events in the programme, all of which are FREE and all take place at the Scottish Storytelling Centre
Monday 15th June to Sunday 28th June 10 -6pm
Exhibition "A Test of Time" extracts from the Saltire Society`s recent "A Test of Time" travelling exhibition. This exhibition looks at the changing qualities of housing in Scotland over the past seventy years. It was based around interviews with residents of the Saltire award winning schemes throughout the past seven decades. There is material on show given by architects, planners and clients, to show a strong sense of what their designs were hoping to achieve and whether the occupants felt that they stood the 'test of time'.
Monday 15th June 6pm (60 mins)
"If Only We Had The Room" , features a series of films from the Scottish Screen archive, a snapshot of the lives of people in Edinburgh in the 1950s and If Only We Had the Room a look at the modernisation of tenement homes.
Friday 19th June 7pm (90mins)
A screening of the film Smoke and Mirrors, a documentary, made in partnership with ‘Edinburgh Against Stock Transfer’ campaign group, documents their successful challenge to The City of Edinburgh Council’s plan to privatise all 23,000 of the city’s council homes. It considers the impact of gentrification programmes on working-class communities, and shows how a well-organised grass-roots, community-based struggle can challenge and defeat deeply unpopular policy decisions.The screening will be followed by a discussion with the film maker Neil Gray.
Tuesday 23rd June 2pm (60mins)
Housing in the Old Town. Jim Johnson (former director of The Old Town Renewal Trust) gives an illustrated talk on the development of housing in the Old Town in the 20th Century.
