A Trainspotting reunion, a Michael Sheen UFO conspiracy drama, and Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex are all on the cards at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival.
The fest has unveiled the full lineup for its 79th edition, running from Aug. 13-19 in the Scottish capital, which boasts sessions with Ewan McGregor, Kenneth Branagh, prolific U.S. producer Christine Vachon and documentarian Ken Burns. In total, 38 new feature films will screen in Edinburgh and 21 will earn world premieres — 10 of which are competing for the The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence.
Following the previously announced opening night film, Louis Paxton’s debut feature from Sundance The Incomer, Edinburgh director Paul Ridd and fest producer Emma Boa continue to pride themselves on balancing emerging voices in cinema with established stars through their world premieres, international and U.K. premieres, and out-of-competition strand. Also already confirmed was the closing night film, the world premiere of Louise Lockwood’s documentary Bel, about Kenyan-Scottish musician Beldina Odenyo.
This year’s competition selection comprises ten feature-length world premieres, with the winning filmmaker awarded £50,000 to support their future projects. They are: Lindsay Ryan’s comedy debut Capsized, starring Rhys Ifans, about a houseboat holiday thrown into disarray; Thom Lunshof’s feature debut First Zone in which a woman navigates a flooded and desolate post-apocalyptic landscape; Paul Wright’s psychological portrait Mission with George MacKay; and Simon Rynink’s 1999-set Out There starring Michael Sheen, who joins a gang of misfits to uncover a UFO conspiracy in a sleepy Welsh town.
They’re joined by an edgy feature from Tyler-Marie Evans, Pretty Babies, following two young girls who embark on a journey into the dark side of Hollywood; Frieda Luk’s Sacred Creatures, in which three sisters reunite at a rural Italy retreat; Kieron J. Walsh’s Skintown about best friends Vinny and Jonty as they plan to escape small town life in 1990s Northern Ireland; Joseph Archer’s unnerving Snapshot, featuring newly surfaced 19th-century pinhole camera footage that reveals disturbing secrets; The State of Us from Ollie Gardner and Jake Harvey, where a boisterous tearaway breaks his best friend out of hospice care for one final night of fun around Yorkshire; and Bart Simpson’s The Mad World of Harvey Kurtzman which sees contributors Terry Gilliam, the late Stan Lee and Robert Crumb offer a compelling insight into the rise of satirical publication Mad magazine.
Elsewhere, the buzziest titles screening out of competition include Molly Manners’ Extra Geography, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Cannes-premiering Her Private Hell, and Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex with Olivia Wilde, Daveed Diggs and Charli XCX, which will screen with Olivia Cade’s short Lesbian Ditch Day. They’re joined by the likes of Finlay Pretsell’s Douglas Gordon by Douglas Gordon, William Scoular’s Northbound with Bruce Dern, and Lance Hammer’s Berlinale thriller Queen At Sea with Juliette Binoche. Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Cannes feature Sheep in the Box will premiere, as will Sophie Heldman’s The Education of Jane Cunning and Noah Stratton-Twine’s comedy-horror The Peril at Pincer Point.
Special retrospective screenings at this year’s Edinburgh Film Fest include a 30th anniversary screening of Kenneth Branagh’s iconic adaptation of Hamlet, a 4K restoration screening for the 20th anniversary of Little Miss Sunshine, the debut of Jonathan Glazer Sexy Beast and Hal Ashby’s Coming Home with Bruce Dern, Jane Fonda and Jon Voight. The film will be introduced by Dern.
EIFF is also to present a 30th anniversary screening of Michael Bay’s action film The Rock, introduced by Jason Connery, and a 25th anniversary screening of Takeshi Miike’s Visitor Q. Martin Scorsese’s 1995 documentary A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies, produced with the BFI, will be screened in its entirety with a special introduction from producer Bob Last.
The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence Competition is back, with world premieres of exciting work from across the world, including Scotland, Lithuania, Iran and France all competing for a £15,000 cash prize in honor of legendary film editor. Among them are Katie McGuinness’ Bruvvas with Ben Whishaw, Sinda Agha’s dark comedy Grief Room starring Emily Beecham, and Mark Chapman’s A Woman of Good Abilities.
Check out the full list of world premieres, U.K. premieres, Midnight Madness films, live-action shorts and animation shorts on the Edinburgh Film Festival website.
This year, the festival’s industry program will be centered around the inaugural U.K. Film Conference, a one-day event on Aug. 15 that aims to bring together filmmakers, producers, exhibitors, distributors and film professionals from all areas of the local and international movie industry to engage with the future of independent film in the U.K. It’ll be kicked off by a headline discussion with British Film Institute CEO Ben Roberts, in conversation with Picturehouse creative director Clare Binns.
“Heading into the third edition of our revamped, reimagined and reinvigorated Edinburgh International Film Festival feels like hitting a stride we have been working towards since the start of 2024,” said fest director Ridd. “With stellar competitions, fantastically varied and essential new films from Scotland, from the wider U.K. and from the rest of the world, and more world premieres than we have ever screened before, this year’s line-up offers a panoramic vision of cinema at its most exciting, dynamic and full of potential. Edinburgh is quite simply the only place to be in August. Bring it on.”
