Noted French producer Jean-Luc Ormieres has been appointed artistic director of Moonstone International, the Edinburgh-based training programme.

Ormieres, whose credits include Chantal Akerman's A Couch In New York, Stijn Coninx's Daens and Ferzan Ozpetek's Ignorant Fairies (Le Fate Ignoranti), succeeds John McGrath, who died suddenly in January.

Moonstone currently runs two residential workshops per year for scriptwriters and a further one for film-makers. Ormieres said he had no plans to change that formula, but would want the Media Plus-backed programmes to attract more participants from southern and Eastern Europe. "I love the creative freedom that these workshops can provide, and the ability for people to make mistakes from which they learn," Ormieres said.

"Somehow Moonstone's spirit was always very European, even if was rooted in the UK. This job is a natural extension of my career, which has been involved with training at various times. I have been consistently very interested in other cultures as the films I have been involved with show."

Discussing his philosophy about film's balancing act between art and commerce, Ormieres said: "Film projects, whether commercial or radical first of all have to be legitimate."