In the mix of Edinburgh’s explosion of culture, chaos, and (world)community, which is August, the Edinburgh International Film Festival brings our gaze away from the stage and towards the big screen for a week-long celebration of Scottish, UK, and World cinema right in the heart of the city across several venues.
This year, audiences can enjoy a wealth of UK and World premieres as the EIFF returns to full form, bookending itself with the hot-anticipated UK premiere of The Outrun, and closing with a World premiere of Scotland’s pop-music scene. With a sprinkling of retrospectives, documentaries, shorts, and special events tossed in for good measure.
A programme designed to provoke, inspire, and of course – entertain, creating a short list of ten for this tremendous festival was no easy feat, so make sure to have a look at the entire programme (particularly the Midnight Madness showcases) and discover why the Edinburgh Internal Film Festival is BACK.
Where better to start, than with the opening film! And what a cracker audiences have with the UK premiere of Amy Liptrot’s The Outrun, starring Saoirse Ronan.
This unflinching adaptation of Liptrot’s personal memoir of hedonism and addiction follows a young woman as they grapple with their recovery in the remote Orkney Islands.
With a mighty cast, a powerful soundtrack, and the kinetic visuals and aesthetics of cinematography, this liberating and riveting feature will be an audience must, so do not delay in grabbing your tickets!
Oh, and why not partake of a double bill with the cinematic adaptation, and The Outrun the Edinburgh International Festival’s stage adaptation of?
Running time – One hour and Fifty-eight minutes
Thursday, August 15th – The Cameo, Cameo 1 & 2 (20:45 and 21:00)
Friday, August 16th – Summerhall, Red Lecture Theatre (12:30)
Friday, August 16th – 50 George Square (16:00)
Xibalba Monster (Monstruo de Xilbalba)
Part of this year’s Competition Features, Manuela Irene’s strikingly shot dramatic feature finds eight-year-old Rogelio looking to unravel the mysteries of death.
After being sent away by his parents to Yucatán, Rogelio encounters the Xibalba, a hermit who is sick and dying, but has already made a pact with the Lords of the Underworld to remain amongst the living – in whatever state he finds himself.
In a captivating central performance, this profound film introduces audiences to another angle of the circle of life and human experience, and a shared curiosity about the natural world around us: a film full of mystery and intrigue.
Running time – Seventy-six minutes
Sunday, August 18th – The Cameo, Cameo 1 (10:00)
Sunday, August 18th – Summerhall, Red Lecture Theatre (12:00)
Monday, August 19th – Inspace (10:00)
Tuesday, August 20th – 50 George Square (10:30)
A bored council worker may have just inadvertently sparked a revolution in a near-sophisticated, bizarre, and dystopian world in Ishan Shukla animated sci-fi, Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust.
This radical new animation, using pioneering video-gaming animated technology, is part of the Festival’s Out of Competition strand of programming. A feature which probes the dystopian futures of social control and liberation, a world in which differences are eradicated.
A world in which everyone wears a paper bag to provide uniformity. But when rumours spiral of a place without these masks, a revolution bubbles.
Running time – One hour and forty-three minutes
Wednesday, August 21st – The Cameo, Cameo 1 (10:00)
Wednesday, August 21st – Summerhall, Red Lecture Theatre (13:00)
A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things
Another Out of Competition entry is the UK premiere of the fantastic filmmaker Mark Cousins’ look at the life and works of Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, twenty years after her death.
Framed around the pivotal 1949 experience atop Switzerland’s Grindelwald glacier which reshaped the modernist painter, A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things navigates wordless colours to aid in new ways of seeing – featuring stunning landscape visuals.
Running time – Eighty-eight minutes
Wednesday, August 21st – The Cameo, Cameo 1 (13:00)
One of a couple of the unique events happening part of this year’s Retrospectives, Director and Dario Argento, fan Gaspar Noé introduces Argento’s influential supernatural horror, Suspiria.
The 1977 Italian classic sees Suzy Bannion, American newcomer to a prestigious ballet academy come to realise that the Tanz dance school is a front for something far more sinister.
One of femme horror’s most influential films, this is a rare and spectacular opportunity for eager fans to get a deeper insight into the film and an excellent way to bring new audiences into the fray.
Running time – Ninety-eight minutes
Saturday, 17th August – The Cameo, Cameo 1 (15:45)
Opening a spectacularly diverse and frightful Midnight Madness strand, legendary horror filmmaker Fede Álvarez’s newest entry into the Alien franchise looks to return the terror in droves with Alien: Romulus.
While scavenging the deep ends of a (seemingly) derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe, and one of cinema’s most iconic creatures in a film which combines nostalgia, novelty, and some ingenious practical FX.
Running time – Two hours
Thursday, August 15th – The Cameo – Cameo 1 and 2 (23:59)
Just one of this year’s Festival shorts strands (along with Experimental, Documentary, and In and Out of Competition), this year’s Animaton Shorts have been crafted with a diverse array of techniques and styles, including, paint on glass, paper cut-out, charcoal, and cels.
Comprising eleven shorts which wonder about the avenues of the absurdities of life, emotions and reality present themselves within a realm of wit and wonder through a series of films that speak of trauma, healing, death, life, and provocation.
Running time – Eighty-two minutes
Saturday, August 17th – Inspace (19:00)
Over a decade on from Ben Rivers’ slow cinema Two Years at Sea, Rivers returns to the ramshackle home of the once sailor, now forest-dwelling hermit Jake Williams.
Retaining the intimacy of their previous feature, Bogancloch marks a change in Jake’s solitary and self-reliant existence. It is a remarkable film which takes audiences to the soul of the wilderness, as one man lives on the edge of the world.
Running time – Eighty-six minutes
Sunday, August 18th – The Cameo, Cameo 1 (14:15)
Sunday, August 18th – 50 George Square (20:00)
Monday, August 19th – The Cameo – Cameo 2 (18:30)
Fringe veteran Nina Conti returns to Edinburgh for a world premiere: in their co-written film (with Shenpah Allen) Sunlight.
A hilarious and dark unconventional love story, which follows two people (one, a woman escaping a toxic relationship, the other a man seeking retribution) on the edge of life and finding a purpose and romance through their connection in escaping the darkness.
As much a subversive and unique road trip as anything, this comedic extension of Conti’s Fringe act, Sunlight looks to be an absurd, heart-warming, and funny feature – complete with monkey.
Running time – Ninety-five minutes
Saturday, August 17th – The Cameo, Cameo 1 (21:15)
Sunday, August 18th – Inspace (21:30)
Monday, August 19th – 50 George Square (21:30)
Tuesday, August 20th – Summerhall, Red Lecture Theatre (13:00)
Returning to his hometown in Northwest China after a stint in jail, Lang is tasked as part of a dog patrol team to clear stray dogs before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, only to form an attachment with a stray whippet.
Black Dog (狗阵 Gou Zhen), Winner of the Un Certain Regard Prize at the Cannes Film Festival finds the unlikely pair form a bond, and begin a new journey together, as the lost and lonely Lang finds the chance at redemption in this soulful and humane film.
Running time- One hour and fifty minutes
Friday, August 16th – The Cameo, Cameo 2 (18:15)
Saturday, August 17th – The Cameo, Cameo 1 (13:15)
Sunday, August 18th – The Cameo, Cameo 2 (18:30)
Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands
And of course, there’s no better way to round off this list of our top picks for the Edinburgh International Film Festival than with their closing film, presented in a collaboration between EIFF and Girls on Film.
A deeply revealing feature, equally humorous as it is enraging, Blair Young and Carla J. Easton’s scrapbook documentary tracks the history of Scottish pop from the sixties through the women who pushed back against the challenges of a male-dominated industry.
Featuring activists, artists, experts, and musicians across the Scottish pop scene, the various cliques and movements which emerged, Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands is an ideal book-end feature to conclude a terrifically bold and engaging festival.
Running time – Eighty-nine minutes
Wednesday, August 21st – The Cameo, Cameo 1 and 2 (21:00 and 21:20)
Interested in being featured? With many previews and Q&As lined up, we’re always happy to chat about including your show in future articles. Please do get in touch through the contact page to feature in an upcoming ‘Have A Gander’