One of the biggest weeks in the UK film calendar is finally upon us as the Edinburgh International Film Festival returns from August 15-21, bringing some of the most exciting and passionate filmmakers to town. Here are some of the highlights of a busy week of film premieres…
Blockbuster Opening Night
The seventy seventh Edinburgh International Film Festival opens with some of the most talked-about features on the programme this year, as two much anticipated titles get their UK premieres at The Cameo Cinema on August 15. First up, we have The Outrun, the latest film from German filmmaker Nora Fingscheldt (System Crasher, The Unforgivable). Based on the 2016 memoir by Scottish author Amy Liptrot, who co-writes the screenplay with Fingscheldt and Daisy Lewis, the drama centres on a recovering drug addict and alcoholic who returns to her rural home in the Orkney Islands in a hope to regain her strength while coming to terms with her past, all set to the stunning setting off the Scottish Coast.
Already heavily praised after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, with Saoirse Ronan’s tour de force lead performance, hailed as one of her career bests, as well as the use of the Orkney Islands as its own character and vital aspect in telling the honest and powerful story, audiences can be excited and intrigued by the programmers’ choice of opening film this year.
To complete the opening night of the festival, The Cameo is also showing the UK premiere of the newest installment in the iconic Alien franchise, with Alien: Romulus kicking off the Midnight Madness screenings through the week.
Fede Álvarez, a popular name in modern horror filmmaking with features like Don’t Breathe and The Evil Dead, directs the new title, 45 years on from Ridley Scott’s original masterpiece (which also had its UK premiere at EIFF). Adding to her strong year of performances in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla and Alex Garland’s Civil War, Cailee Spaeny becomes the latest lead in the franchise, where her team of space travelers must fend for themselves to survive against the threat of the universe’s most terrifying creatures. A late night showing is the perfect environment for audiences to get the scares before it opens nationwide on August 16.
Sing Sing
In what promises to be one of the biggest feel-good features of the year, Greg Kweder sheds light on the Sing Sing Correctional Facility where the practice of Rehabilitation Through the Arts was created to help incarcerated men by partaking in theatre and arts activities.
Recently nominated for an Academy Award, Colman Domingo is back and shining once more in the lead role as Divine G, who is imprisoned as Sing Sing for a crime he hadn’t committed, but in the process discovers a truer and more humanic purpose and meaning to life through the power of art and theatre. Already gaining mass amounts of anticipation from its premiere at the Toronto Film Festvial last year, the EIFF is the first place in Europe to get a glimpse of this story of bonding and togetherness that will strike deep nerves with viewers.
Sing Sing is showing on August 16, 17 and 18, at The Cameo, Summerhall and 50 George Square
Special Events and Retrospectives
Along with premieres of some of the most fascinating and intriguing features that you will see all year, the EIFF has organised a selection of one-day only events full of guest talks from household names in the industry and exclusives showings of some classics of the screen.
Gaspar Noé, the mastermind behind the cult classics Irreversible, Enter the Void and Climax, gives a special talk on his career and features to an audience at the Tollcross Central Hall. Noé also hosts and presents a rare screening of Dario Argento’s 1977 classic suspenseful horror Suspiria, featuring one of the boldest and stunning colour palettes in film from the last half-century which will shine even more bright on the big screen at the Cameo.
Other In Conversation events at this year’s festival include talks with long time collaborators Alex Garland and Andrew Macdonald (Ex Machina, Annihilation, Men, Civil War) as well as a chat from famous film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, known for regular collaborations with Martin Scorsese, most recently for last year’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
The Substance
Marking the festival coming to an end, the final Midnight Madness screening brings new body horror drama The Substance from director Coralie Fargeat (Revenge). A cold and dark story of a celebrity undergoing an experimental body procedure in a bid to restore her popularity online, this chilling satire starring Demi Moore and Maragret Qualley was a hit at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, winning the prize for Best Screenplay and challenging for the Palme D’or. This gore-led piece of art looks to help close out this year’s festival with a bloody bang.
The Substance is showing on August 20, at The Cameo and August 21 at Inspace.
Details of all film showings and special events can be found at www.edfilmfest.org
