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BAFTA New Talent Award back for Edinburgh Festival

The organisers of the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival are inviting submissions for the BAFTA Interactive New Talent Award, which will be presented at the event for the second year running.

The award is designed to recognise "notable creative innovation, technical excellence and production achievements". Only corporate applicants were eligible to submit entries last year, but the 2005 award is also open to individuals.

Entrants must be involved in product development or technology - whether as producers, artists, programmers, designers or audio engineers - and cannot have worked in the interactive entertainment industry for more than five years.

The entries will be judged by members of the BAFTA Interactive Committee and the winner will be announced by an as yet unnamed industry figure during a special presentation.

Last year's award was won by Paulina Bozek for her work as Associate Producer of SingStar for PlayStation 2, a game which went on to receive the BAFTA Award for Originality.

"Receiving last year's award was a great achievement for me personally and professionally," said Bozek.

"Being awarded by the BAFTA academy and recognised by industry peers at the EIEF is a great experience. It's fantastic to see BAFTA and the EIEF supporting new talent, innovation and creativity."

Grant Dean, chair of the BAFTA Interactive Committee, commented: "We are very pleased to be working alongside the EIEF in recognising emerging talent within the video games industry.

"It is essential that individuals gain credit for pushing the technical excellence and creativity within this art form."

EIEF chairman Greg Ingham said the festival was "honoured" to host the presentation of the award, adding: "We hope that this develops into a long-standing feature of the festival."

To submit an entry, applicants are required to complete the form available on the EIEF and BAFTA websites.

EIEF is jointly organised by TIGA and ELSPA, with the support of Scottish Enterprise, and will take place on August 10-14 at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

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Ellie Gibson

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Ellie spent nearly a decade working at Eurogamer, specialising in hard-hitting executive interviews and nob jokes. These days she does a comedy show and podcast. She pops back now and again to write the odd article and steal our biscuits.