EIFF – Mortician wins the prize for best film
The awards were presented by Jason Connery on behalf of The Connery Foundation, and by legendary film editor, Thelma Schoonmaker.
The winner of this year's The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, decided on by an audience vote and funded by The Connery Foundation is Abdolreza Kahani's Mortician.
Ten feature-length World Premieres were presented at EIFF as part of the competition with the winning filmmaker being awarded £50,000 to support their future projects.
In Mortician, a reclusive mortician faces an unusual request from a dissident singer in hiding, their bond providing the beating heart of this disarmingly elegant film. Combining a distinctive, lo-fi visual style, naturalistic performances and familiar wit and humanity, Director Abdolreza Kahani's film is both utterly distinctive and affecting.
In Mortician director Abdolreza Kahani returns to EIFF following his film A Shrine screening as part of last year's Festival. Mortician is presented as part of Spotlight Canada 2025, supported by The High Commission of Canada and The Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation.
EIFF Director, Paul Ridd, said about the film: 'Director Abdolreza Kahani (A SHRINE) returns to EIFF with another entirely original and gripping character study and puzzle piece. A reclusive mortician faces an unusual request from a dissident singer in hiding, their bond providing the beating heart of this disarmingly elegant film. Combining a distinctive, lo-fi visual style, naturalistic performances and familiar wit and humanity, Kahani's new film is utterly distinctive and affecting with a gut punch ending that will leave audiences reeling.'
EIFF 2025, Sean Connery Award Winner, Mortician; Edinburgh International Film Festival, Aug 2025; Photographer: Kat Gollock © EIFF, Edinburgh International Film Festival
The winner of The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence Competition is Joanna Vymeris's Mother Goose. The short film competition winner was also decided on by an audience vote and is awarded £15,000 to support their future projects.
The prize was collected on Ms Vymeris behalf – she was already on a plane on her way back to the US.
After the death of her husband, Janet decides to distract herself by rearing a goose, which is to be the centrepiece of her Christmas dinner. However, as she grows ever more isolated from her daughter, Janet's need to nurture the goose becomes an obsession: one which will cost her dearly. A modern day Grimm's fairy-tale about grief, isolation and a goose.
EIFF 2025, Thelma Schoonmaker Award Winner, Mother Goose; Edinburgh International Film Festival, Aug 2025; Photographer: Kat Gollock © EIFF, Edinburgh International Film Festival
Like this:
Like
Related
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Edinburgh Reporter
a day ago
- Edinburgh Reporter
EIFF – Mortician wins the prize for best film
Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) announced the winners of the prizes for both feature filmmaking and short filmmaking at a ceremony in the Cameo cinema on Wednesday evening. The awards were presented by Jason Connery on behalf of The Connery Foundation, and by legendary film editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. The winner of this year's The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, decided on by an audience vote and funded by The Connery Foundation is Abdolreza Kahani's Mortician. Ten feature-length World Premieres were presented at EIFF as part of the competition with the winning filmmaker being awarded £50,000 to support their future projects. In Mortician, a reclusive mortician faces an unusual request from a dissident singer in hiding, their bond providing the beating heart of this disarmingly elegant film. Combining a distinctive, lo-fi visual style, naturalistic performances and familiar wit and humanity, Director Abdolreza Kahani's film is both utterly distinctive and affecting. In Mortician director Abdolreza Kahani returns to EIFF following his film A Shrine screening as part of last year's Festival. Mortician is presented as part of Spotlight Canada 2025, supported by The High Commission of Canada and The Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation. EIFF Director, Paul Ridd, said about the film: 'Director Abdolreza Kahani (A SHRINE) returns to EIFF with another entirely original and gripping character study and puzzle piece. A reclusive mortician faces an unusual request from a dissident singer in hiding, their bond providing the beating heart of this disarmingly elegant film. Combining a distinctive, lo-fi visual style, naturalistic performances and familiar wit and humanity, Kahani's new film is utterly distinctive and affecting with a gut punch ending that will leave audiences reeling.' EIFF 2025, Sean Connery Award Winner, Mortician; Edinburgh International Film Festival, Aug 2025; Photographer: Kat Gollock © EIFF, Edinburgh International Film Festival The winner of The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence Competition is Joanna Vymeris's Mother Goose. The short film competition winner was also decided on by an audience vote and is awarded £15,000 to support their future projects. The prize was collected on Ms Vymeris behalf – she was already on a plane on her way back to the US. After the death of her husband, Janet decides to distract herself by rearing a goose, which is to be the centrepiece of her Christmas dinner. However, as she grows ever more isolated from her daughter, Janet's need to nurture the goose becomes an obsession: one which will cost her dearly. A modern day Grimm's fairy-tale about grief, isolation and a goose. EIFF 2025, Thelma Schoonmaker Award Winner, Mother Goose; Edinburgh International Film Festival, Aug 2025; Photographer: Kat Gollock © EIFF, Edinburgh International Film Festival Like this: Like Related
The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- The Herald Scotland
Irvine Welsh documentary was a fitting end to close the EIF
Irvine Welsh is full of stories, one reason he is such a prolific author. He isn't short of anecdotes, either, or of opinions. These range from politics to what he mockingly refers to as his 'practice', in other words his approach to fiction writing. But he also has the raconteur's gift of delivery and – whisper it – a whiff of the public intellectual to him. God knows we need that breed these days. Throw in his oeuvre (another term he probably hates) and his authorship of the most iconic Scottish novel of the last 30 years, and you can see why he is such a rich subject for a documentary. Unsurprisingly there have been a few to date. But Edinburgh-based film-maker Paul Sng's is undoubtedly the best, making it a welcome and fitting work to bring down the curtain on this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival. Artful, considered, imaginative, rewarding, though-provoking and pleasingly high concept, it avoids dwelling too much on past glories to foreground its subject in the present. Read More: We open, though, with a sort of career précis. It comes courtesy of clips from an onstage interview conducted at a Toronto literary festival by Welsh's fellow Edinburgh-er Michael Pedersen, fast approaching national treasure status himself. Still in Canada, we then see Welsh visit the offices of a couple of lifestyle/therapy gurus in order to take hallucinogenic drug Dimethyltryptamine. Known as DMT – or, sometimes, the businessman's drug, because the trip it induces can be had in a lunch-break – it offers Welsh a break from the reality which he says is 'not enough' for a writer and from which Sng takes his intriguing title. Having brusquely headed off some therapy-speak 'bullshit' from the shaven-headed wellness dudes – just give me the drug is Welsh's simple request – he takes to a mattress to enjoy the experience. We return to him there throughout, Sng using this as a framing device and as a slipway to launch the free-wheeling sequences in which Welsh, dressed in white suit and t-shirt, wanders through an abandoned factory as images and colours are projected onto him and the walls. These sequences are trippy and psychedelic, and have the effect of making it look as if he is in some liminal space, or is being invited to amble through a dream version of his own life. Much of the projections show old footage of Edinburgh, causing the author to reflect on his early life, the death of his parents, his use of drugs, his reasons for first picking up a pen. 'I wouldn't have been a writer if it hadn't been for Acid House,' he says at one point. Sng also drops in excerpts from Welsh's novels, accompanied by even trippier visuals. The obliging readers include Liam Neeson (a passage from The Acid House), Stephen Graham (Glue), Maxine Peake (Porno), Ruth Negga (Dead Men's Trousers) and, last, an unspecified voice with a very slight Australian lilt. Could it be? It is: Nick Cave, reading from The Blade Artist. Too much of this would be, well, too much, so interspersed with the curated readings and the jazzy visuals are more prosaic sections. We see Welsh and his wife Emma at Traquair House in the Borders following a book festival event. We watch him play football with childhood friends in Muirhouse, at the ground of Lowland League football club Civil Service Strollers, then chatting easily with them in the bar afterwards. We see him in LA with his manager, at his house in Miami, and at the boxing club he frequents there. Sng controls and presents his material well, though it's Welsh's own observations, thoughts and opinions which really drive the film. Some are just wryly humorous. 'Married to me? I think it would be a hard shift,' he says, the only time he answers an off-screen question. Others are more reflective. 'Writing ... is essentially a square go with yourself,' he says. Then, later: 'You steal from your own life. You're constantly putting fangs in your own fucking neck.' And: 'The most important resource you have is time. I basically retired 30 years ago, I've just been indulging myself since.' But it's one of his post-trip comments which lingers most in the mind. 'I'm no longer an atheist,' he says. 'It makes dying a more exciting thing than a thing to dread.' No sign of that yet, though – it's very much a life and an appetite for life which Paul Sng's commendable documentary celebrates and explores.
The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
Irvine Welsh opens up on influence of parents for new film
The creator of Trainspotting told The Herald he had agreed to work on an 'intimate portrayal' with Edinburgh-based director Paul Sng despite the 'intimidating' prospect of the documentary exploring his closest relationships. Read more: His wife, actress Emma Currie, appears alongside Welsh in Reality Is Not Enough, the closing gala at this month's Edinburgh International Film Festival, with the documentary featuring footage from their wedding three years ago. Welsh, who was also filmed with some of his longest-lasting friends for the documentary, discusses the importance of his upbringing in Edinburgh, describing the city as both a 'launchpad' and a 'refuge.' Irvine Welsh is the focus of Paul Sng's documentary Reality Is Not Enough. (Image: Chris McCluskie) He reveals how he lost his father before he had even started writing Trainspotting, the debut novel that caused a sensation in the literary world when it was released in 1993. Although they had mutual friends in Edinburgh, Sng and Welsh only met for the first time in 2019, at a Primal Scream concert in Princes Street Gardens in 2019. Irvine Welsh was filmed working around the world for 18 months for the documentary Reality Is Not Enough. (Image: Chris McCluskie | LS Productions) The pair became friends and Sng first broached the subject of making a film with Welsh two years later after they went to see director Todd Haynes' documentary on the rock band The Velvet Underground. Described as an "intimate and hallucinatory portrait" of the writer, Reality Is Not Enough sees Welsh recalling his experiences of growing up in Edinburgh, drug addiction, breaking into the literary scene and seeing his work adapted for film and TV. Irvine Welsh was filmed with his wife, actress Emma Currie, for the documentary Reality Is Not Enough. (Image: Chris McCluskie | LS Productions) Welsh told The Herald: 'I have always resisted doing anything autobiographical. "The thing about being a writer is you live inside your own head all the time. Irvine Welsh is the focus of the documentary Reality Is Not Enough. (Image: Bloody Scotland) 'You don't really think of your life being interesting enough. You forget that you do have a life outside of your own head, which nourishes and informs everything you do. 'I remembering Paul saying to me: 'You're very romantic, you're funny, you're close to your friends and your community is very important.' He really wanted to bring a sense of that. It was quite intimidating for me, as it's always been a private space, but I just thought 'f*** it.' 'He told me he wanted to do a more intimate portrayal, rather than have talking heads saying 'Irvine is great, the 1990s were fabulous, Trainspotting is brilliant' and all that. He wanted to do something quite cinematic and adventurous, and also try to get to where I come from creatively and how I pull things together. I had a lot of trust and belief in him.' Sng said: 'There was a rule right from the beginning not to have other people tell us who their Irvine Welsh is. I think people want to know who Irvine is from his perspective. The trick was to find out how to do that in a natural way. If you follow Irvine for 18 months things are going to come out. 'I think he is poles apart from his persona in the press. People seize on things and think he is confrontational, controversial and maybe swears a lot. They don't know that he is very romantic, very warm, a very loyal friend and also very tall! 'I think Irvine's friends will see the person they know. But I think people that have maybe only read his books and don't know much about him will see a human being, as well as the foibles, passions and failings that we all have. 'Irvine and Emma are the heart and soul of the film. I learned a lot from both of them. I had a very low moment when I was making the film. They were both very much there for me.' In the documentary, Welsh, whose mother lived into her nineties, recalls how the death of his father initially set him off on a 'destructive spiral' but then provided the impetus to focus on writing. He said: 'I was very close to him. He was really good guy. Even though he was really ill, when he actually did die it was quite a shock. To lose someone that you're close to you is a terrible thing. 'My dad had no knowledge of Trainspotting. He was dead before I even put pen to paper to start writing the book. My dad had quite a big personality. He cast quite a big shadow. When that shadow was gone, I came out of myself quite a bit. You can either shrink into nothingness or you can take your person spotlight. I think I kind of did that. 'It was probably the making of me because I cleaned up my act, I focused and realised: 'F*** me, people just die. You've got to do something for yourself. You owe it to them to live your life to the full'.' Welsh had moved to London in the late 1970s but returned about a decade later to work for the city council's housing department and also studied business administration at Heriot-Watt University. He told The Herald: 'I used to sit up all night talking and drinking with my dad. He was my best mate, basically. I used to talk to him about all the things I wanted to do. I had a massive list. 'One of those things was to be a writer, because I thought I could get on with it in my own time and at my own pace. 'I didn't really know how to work with people who were more talented than me. It's something you have to learn if you are a collaborator in music or film. 'The thing about writing is I thought I could just dive in and learn myself. I didn't have anyone to answer to or have anyone looking over my shoulder.' Welsh, who has just celebrated his third anniversary with Currie, has had a hugely productive five years, working on two series of Crime, the drama adapted from his Ray Lennox novels, three books, including Men In Love, the latest novel reuniting his Trainspotting characters, and a planned Trainspotting musical. He said: 'I don't get a sense that I am slowing down at all. When you get more experienced and have knocked out so many books, I don't think you necessarily get better, but you get more efficient. 'I never look back at all and never really look ahead. The timeframe I operate in is the present day, a couple of days in the past and a couple of weeks into the future. It really drives publishers crazy. I don't think it's the best way. It's just the way that I am.' The Herald has teamed up with to make the purchase of tickets for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. To buy tickets, please click here.
