Soaring demand for premieres boosts Edinburgh film festival

The Herald Scotland

02-07-2025

Nearly two thirds of films in last year's programme – the first under director Paul Ridd and producer Emma Boa - have since been picked up for cinema distribution.
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The festival will be returning to the recently-reopened Filmhouse for the first time in three years, and also working in partnership with the National Galleries of Scotland and the Monkey Barrel Comedy Club as part of a drive to attract new audiences.
An expanded programme of industry events will be rolled out at a new 'festival hub' which will be set up at the Central Hall, near the Cameo cinema in Tollcross, with the 600-capacity venue also playing host to the festival's strand of in-conversation events for a second year.
Oscar-winning Scottish documentary maker Kevin Macdonald, his brother Andrew, producer of Trainspotting, Shallow Grave and the 28 Days Later franchise, BAFTA-winning filmmaker Andrea Arnold and American director Nia DaCosta will be among the special guests.
The event will feature the world premiere of an animated film by Bridget Jones star Renee Zellweger, a remake of the cult 1980s comedy horror The Toxic Avenger featuring new turns from Peter Dinklage, Elijah Wood and Kevin Bacon, new British crime drama All The Devils Are Here, about four thieves ordered to hide out in a secluded house, and Dragonfly, a mystery thriller starring British actresses Brenda Blethyn and Andrea Riseborough.
An animated film directed by Renee Zellweger will get its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival Festival. (Image: Jay Maidment/Universal Pictures)
Grow, a fantasy set in the self-proclaimed "pumpkin capital of the world" from Scottish filmmaker John McPhail, director of zombie musical Anna and the Apocalypse, features a star-studded cast including Nick Frost, Jeremy Swift, Alan Carr, Jane Horrocks, Tim McInnnery, Alan Carr.
Other highlights include documentaries exploring the life and work of best-selling Edinburgh author Irvine Welsh and what goes on at Scotland's annual porridge-making, and a collaboration between Scottish actress-turned-filmmaker Morven Christie and teenage screen star Frankie Corio, who was propelled to fame in Aftersun, the 2022 EIFF curtainraiser.
The festival will host a 35th anniversary screening of the Scottish prison drama Silent Scream, Robert Carlyle's first film, in honour of film and TV producer Paddy Higson, who passed away earlier this year, and a 40th anniversary screening of the classic Scottish comedy Restless Natives, which was recently turned into a new stage musical.
The Irvine Welsh documentary Reality Is Not Enough will close this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival. (Image: Chris McCluskie)
Ten world premieres will compete for a new Sean Connery Prize for feature filmmaking excellence, which was launched at last year's festival, and was won by self-taught British director Jack King for his debut feature The Ceremony.
The £50,000 prize was instigated after the Sean Connery Foundation, which was created to honour the legacy of the Edinburgh-born actor, agreed to support the relaunch festival he was a long-time patron of.
Contenders this year include road movie Low Rider, On The Sea, a love story set in a Welsh fishing village, Two Neighbors, a modern-day fable focusing on two women who collide at a party, Once You Shall Be One Of Those Who Lived Long Ago, a documentary on a Swedish mining town with a dwindling population, and Concessions, which is set on the final day of business at a small-town American cinema,
A remake of The Toxic Avenger will be screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. (Image: Supplied) Members of Sir Sean's family will be among the special guests introducing early morning screenings at the Filmhouse of the six classic James Bond films he starred in between 1962 and 1971.
The festival is also joining forces with the Sean Connery Foundation and the National Film and Television School to premiere the first six short films to emerge from a new talent lab initiative which was launched last year to help develop a new generation of Scottish filmmakers.
New British crime thriller All The Devils Are Here will be premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. (Image: Supplied)
The festival was relaunched last year following a turbulent period in the wake of the sudden collapse of the Edinburgh-based Centre for the Moving Image in October 2022, which forced both the EIFF and the Filmhouse to shut down.
The Filmhouse has only just reopened after being put up for sale by the CMI's administrators and rescued by a group of former staff, while a brand new board and team has been assembled to lead the festival into a new era.
The Golden Spurtle documentary will go behind the scenes at an annual porridge-making world championships held in a village in the Highlands. (Image: Supplied)
Last year's reboot, which also feature the launch of a short film prize named after Oscar-winning filmmaker. She was one of last year's special guests, along with filmmaker Gaspar Noe, writer Alex Garland, and screen stars Saoirse Ronan and Kelly Macdonald.
The Edinburgh International Film Festival will be returning to the historic Filmhouse cinema for the first time in three years. (Image: Kat Gollock)
Mr Ridd said: 'I think we had a really strong start last year.
'We had a real opportunity, because we were building a whole new organisation, to rethink a lot of things and relaunch the festival.
Festival director Paul Ridd, film producer Andrew Macdonald, the chair of the EIFF board, film editor Thelma Schoonmaker and festival producer Emma Boa. (Image: Pako Mera)
'We set out a template for how the programme will look and what the shape of the festival will be.
'We are consolidating things with the return of our two major competitions, which are the centrepiece of the festival. Around them, we will have some amazing UK and world premieres, some great guests and a really good industry programme.
Scottish comedy Restless Natives will get a 40th anniversary screening at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. (Image: free)
'For me, this year is all about being bigger and better, and reinstating our intention to provide a really audience-focused festival, that is integrated into both the wider film industry and the arts landscape in Edinburgh.'
Mr Ridd said the involvement of the Sean Connery Foundation had been crucial in helping to realise ambitions to showcase new films of the highest possible quality drawn from around the world.
Classic James Bond films, including Goldfinger, will get rare screenings at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. (Image: Supplied)
Filmmakers from Canada, Spain, Greece, Denmark, Croatia, France, Turkey, Australia, Brazil and Japan feature in the programme, which will champion 43 new features, including 18 world premieres in total.
Mr Ridd said: 'Every programming decision we make is about providing a broad range of really high-quality international work.
Lady MacLean will be among the new Scottish films premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
'We have got really a strong presence of Scottish films, Scottish filmmakers, UK films and UK filmmakers, embedded in a wider matrix of international cinema. That is absolutely crucial to what we're doing at the festival.
'Having Sean Connery's name on the feature filmmaking prize has been absolutely invaluable for the festival.
Actress Morven Christie will be launching Stray, a new short film she has directed, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
'Last year we had around 2500 submissions for the feature filmmaking prize. This year we have been considering more than 4500 films.
'It has been a very difficult process, but what it has meant that the films that are in the final programme are of a very high standard.
'People obviously really see the value of that prize, the prestige of the Connery name and the history of the festival.
'Jack King, who won the Connery prize with The Ceremony last year, has told us that it has completely altered the trajectory of his career.'
Mr Ridd said it was 'crucial' for the festival to attract filmmakers to Edinburgh to launch their films to help them find the widest possible audiences for their work.
He said: 'I would measure around 50 per cent of our success on the seven days the festival is in August, and what we deliver for audiences and filmmakers.
'I think the other 50 per cent is about tracking what happens to those films and filmmakers afterwards.
'Last year, 60 per cent of our feature films secured UK distribution, which was really good, but we want to grow that figure.
'The way that we do that is to create opportunities for our filmmakers to speak directly to audiences but also interact with all the industry delegates that we have. It's all about what the future of their films and what the future of their careers looks like.
'These are tough times for filmmakers. It is a miracle every time a film gets made, let alone seen. Distribution is really tricky at the moment.
'We have a weight of responsibility to foster an environment in which films have the best possible chance to secure distribution, and filmmakers have the chance to potentially meet that next collaborator, commissioner or producer on the ground.
We are very much focused on providing a really strong platform to address the challenges that filmmakers have. We can promise that we will give those films and filmmakers in our programme a fighting chance beyond the dates of our festival
'We are very much focused on providing a really strong platform to address the challenges that filmmakers face.
'We can promise that we will give those films and filmmakers in our programme a fighting chance beyond the festival.'
The film festival was launched in 1947, the same year as both the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, and ran at the same time of year as the other events until a controversial change of dates in 2008, when it was moved to mid-June. It kept the earlier dates until the Covid pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 event.
However the rebooted version of the EIFF seems set to stay in August for the foreseeable future.
Mr Ridd said: 'Edinburgh has the biggest arts festival in the world in August. There are so many creatives from all areas of the arts engaged in performance and discovery.
'There is an audience that is already invested with the 78 years of this festival's history and our programme.
'To me, it is about bringing those audiences who are engaging with the music, comedy and theatre that is going on to bring them to our films as well.
'We want to open up opportunities for people to take risks and explore all this new work. The idea of discovery is what really gives the film festival momentum.'