Edinburgh Gets a Connery Institute, and an Address Still to Be Found

The National Film and Television School said on 22 September 2026 that it will create a filmmaking centre in Edinburgh called the NFTS Sean Connery Institute, in a long-term partnership with the Sean Connery Foundation. The school's release describes the Institute as launching in 2027, and says the two parties have committed to opening a new headquarters in central Edinburgh within the next 18 months, which puts the deadline at approximately March 2028. It would be the first permanent home the school has held in Scotland.

The release is clearer about who the centre is for than about what it will be. The Institute gathers nine years of the school's Scottish work, carried out as NFTS Scotland, under one name, and will deliver its training programmes alongside a regular public programme of screenings, masterclasses, conversations and events, on a pathway set out in five stages, from discovery to work.

Jon Wardle, the school's director, is quoted in the release, as are Jason Connery and Stephane Connery, jointly, for the Sean Connery Foundation. The release gives neither Connery a title, though the school's Talent Lab page describes Stephane Connery as Chair of the Foundation. Chris Young, a Scottish producer, leads the Talent Lab, and Alison Goring heads NFTS Scotland.

Wardle, in the release:

"The NFTS Sean Connery Institute will allow us to take that work to an entirely new level. Together with the Sean Connery Foundation, we have an extraordinary opportunity to build on Sean's legacy and his deep connection to Scotland by creating a genuine pathway into and through the Scottish screen industry. By establishing a permanent home in Edinburgh, we are putting down roots and making a long-term commitment to help Scotland's emerging talent build lasting careers."

The programme that already exists

The Sean Connery Talent Lab is the part of this that is running now. Launched in 2023 with the Foundation and a raft of industry partners, it is an intensive year-long development programme for emerging Scottish writers, directors, producers, cinematographers and editors, and is in production with its third cohort. The school says 75 filmmakers have been supported since its inception, and 12 films created through it, selected for consecutive world premieres at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2025 and 2026. The Lab stays at the heart of the Institute.

On the school's published key dates, applications for the cycle now recruiting close on 10 November 2026 and the programme begins in late April 2027. The course page lists it as 12 months, part-time and in person in Scotland, with a start of May 2027. Delivery and graduation fall in March 2028, and by April 2028 the school expects six narrative shorts of no more than 15 minutes each.

Jason and Stephane Connery, for the Foundation, in the same release:

"Our father believed deeply in fairness, hard work, and supporting talented people in need. He understood that while talent may be distributed equally, opportunity is not, and that those who demonstrate determination and endeavour should have the chance to fulfil their potential. He was immensely proud of his Scottish roots, and we know he would be so pleased that we are extending our partnership with the NFTS and deepening our relationship with his home town of Edinburgh. After three tremendous years proving what is possible through the work of the Sean Connery Talent Lab, this next chapter allows us to create opportunities for even more talented Scots across the creative, technical and production disciplines that make filmmaking possible. We are proud to make this long-term commitment in his name and in keeping with the values he held dear."

The money that is documented, and the filings that are not

The only sums any primary document attaches to this partnership are the Talent Lab's. The course fee is £10,000, and 70% of it is underwritten by the Sean Connery Foundation; successful applicants pay £3,000. The Lab takes a maximum of thirty filmmakers, who form six filmmaking teams, each with a £25,000 production budget plus equipment and facilities from the school.

Set beside the school's own filed accounts, those are small numbers. The school is on the Scottish Charity Register as a cross-border charity, number SC048472, registered on 20 June 2018 and known there as NFTS Scotland. Its most recent filed year, ended 31 July 2025, records income of £25,469,413, expenditure of £23,139,530 and 159 staff. No figure at all is attached to the Edinburgh centre.

The Foundation's side is harder to read, because so little of it is public. Its website says it was established by a provision of Sir Sean's estate, for strategic grantmaking in the two countries he called home, Scotland and The Bahamas, across screen education, swimming, golf and ocean health. In Scotland it says it invests primarily in film and golf, and its grantee list there includes the school itself.

That is a mission statement, not a filed objects clause, and no filed objects clause is available. A search of the full Scottish Charity Register export of 24,991 charities, dated 22 September 2026, returns no entry containing the name Connery. Nor is there a findable United States tax filing, or a United Kingdom company of that name. The Foundation publishes no registration number, no jurisdiction of constitution, no financial figures and no trustee or director names, and does not mention the Institute anywhere on its site. Its income, its governing document and the identities of its trustees are unavailable. Stephane Connery's chairmanship comes from the school's pages rather than a register, and Jason Connery is given no office in either release.

Announced, and nothing after that

The stage this has reached is announcement. There is no building: no address, no street, no district and no named property appears in any primary document, which says only central Edinburgh. There is no cost of any kind, anywhere, in the release, on the Institute's page or on the Foundation's site. And because no site has been chosen, no planning application is even possible yet.

No public funder has announced money for it. Screen Scotland has published nothing on the Institute, and its September 2026 news index does not mention the Connery name. The Scottish Government appears on the Institute's page in a list of partners of the school's wider Scottish work, which is a partnership with a body of activity, not funding for a building.

Two further questions are left open. The school has had a permanent Scottish base since 2023 inside FirstStage Studios in Leith, and the central Edinburgh headquarters is a different, additional location; neither document says what becomes of Leith. Nor is it stated whether the Institute is a separate legal entity or a department of the school, or what its staffing and intake will be.

For now it is a name, a launch year, an 18-month pledge, and a programme that has already put 12 films on a festival screen.