Edinburgh International Film Festival

Jeanne Moreau to get Retrospective at Edinburgh International Film Festival

28 Feb 2008

French screen star Jeanne Moreau is to be the subject of a special retrospective at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. Festival director Hannah McGill said Moreau showed ‘exactly the sort of trailblazing spirit, boldness and intelligence…

Ghosted - Art Malik, John Lynch & Craig Viveiros interview

Prison drama cast includes Martin Compston and David Schofield

27 Jun 2011

It’s that if actors of the calibre of John Lynch and Art Malik want a meaty role in a British feature film, the odds are number one, it’s going to have to be set in a criminal world of some description and number two, it’s more than likely going…

The sex-themed shows that turn Edinburgh into sin city during August

Pole dancers, prostitutes and rampant bedhoppers at the 2010 Fringe

16 Jul 2010

'Coming back from seeing the second Sex and the City film,’ says live artist Bryony Kimmings, ‘I was absolutely disgusted.’ And she’s not the only one groaning about the latest instalment of this once groundbreaking explicit comedy about the sexual…

The Illusionist - Sylvain Chomet's animated feature creates an Edinburgh never seen before

2 Jun 2010

Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist, the film opening the 2010 Edinburgh International Film Festival, puts a vision of Edinburgh, and rural Scotland, on screen like no other. Set in 1950s Edinburgh and the Western Isles, locations depicted in the animated…

The List Awards at Edinburgh International Film Festival

The Last Circus, Perfect Sense and Project Nim among winning films

22 Jun 2011

It’s been well documented that as a result of what festival director James Mullighan refers to as ‘straightened times’, the Edinburgh Film Festival has scaled back its more expensive operations this year, including cutting several awards. However…

Reel Science events programme among highlights of Edinburgh Film Festival

Tomboy, My Brothers and Project Nim among film highlights

17 Jun 2011

After my fearless leader’s less-than-generous appraisal of this aged Festival’s opening night, I’m hoping to bring a little bit of love for EIFF back to these web pages. Admittedly, the pared-down nature of this year’s Festival is most noticeable in the…

Weekender - Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Jack O’Connell interview

Film charting 1990s British rave scene

25 Jun 2011

“We’re a bit like a double-act”, quips Jack O’Connell, referring to himself and his co-star Henry Lloyd-Hughes, and it proves true as they talk to me. They’re ostensibly discussing Weekender, which has it’s World Premiere at this year’s Festival, but…

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011 opens with an Oirish whimper (not a bang)

65th festival gets underway despite disappointing opener The Guard

16 Jun 2011

So the 65th edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival is now open. It opened last night, a balmy, spitty Wednesday evening, with a screening of John Michael McDonagh’s decidedly patchy Irish comedy policier The Guard starring Brendan Gleeson.

Au Revoir Taipei, Honeymooner and Third Star bring EIFF 2010 to a close

Edinburgh International Film Festival Blog

28 Jun 2010

Sunday 27 June. The closing days of the festival are a giddy affair: you realise that, after so many recommendations and bits of buzz floating about, the EIFF has mutated into this Cloverfield-like monster: there’s beautiful people wandering around…

Modern Love, Get Low, Aaron Schneider and the fragility of film-making at EIFF 2010

Edinburgh International Film Festival Blog

26 Jun 2010

Friday 25 June Friday was my last day at the Festival, and I decided to use it to take a walk off the beaten EIFF track and check out Modern Love, a short film made by a bunch of teenagers from Fife in conjunction with a company called Media…

The Last Circus

Spanish black comedy/horror takes in clowns, circus life, love and madness

20 Jun 2011

The latest film from writer/director Alex de la Iglesia is almost unclassifiable, a love story, a black comedy and horror all apply and as fans of his Accion Mutante (1992) will know it’s this glorious mess of ideas and themes that makes for such a…

EIFF day one highlight is The Last Rites of Ransom Pride

Edinburgh International Film Festival Blog

17 Jun 2010

Thursday 17th June A dirty, filthy hangover from the Opening Gala after-party was not enough to stop me fulfilling my interview commitments today, although it was enough to stop me getting into town early and securing tickets for various movies.

Edinburgh International Film Festival highlights

25 Jun 2009

The Girlfriend Experience Steven Soderbergh’s dark and fascinating study of working girls and their credit-crunched clients. American adult film industry star Sasha Gray features. Cineworld, Wed 24 Jun, 9.30pm & Sat 27 Jun, 8.45pm. 35 Shots of Rum…

You've Been Trumped - Anthony Baxter interview

Director of Donald Trump doc on being shunned by Scottish film bodies

22 Sep 2011

‘I live in Montrose and it’s 40 miles south of the Menie Estate, where Donald Trump was planning to build his golf course resort. I read the newspapers every day and I was surprised that the coverage was so one-sided. The other side of the story, as I…

Calvet - Dominic Allan & Jean Marc Calvet interview

Documentary charting extraordinary life of French artist

25 Jun 2011

CALVET depicts the struggles of Jean Marc Calvet, now an artist with burgeoning international success, to come to terms with his past and, more particularly reconcile with the son he abandoned. So far, so straightforward, but Jean Marc has quite a few…

Turin Horse - Béla Tarr interview

Hungarian director's final film takes Nietzsche's madness as starting point

23 Jun 2011

Iconic Hungarian director Béla Tarr was in Edinburgh to present his latest and reportedly final film, Turin Horse. The film is inspired by an event often reported as the beginning of Friedrich Nietzsche’s mental breakdown. The philosopher is said to…

Rabies (Kalevat)

An interesting twist on slasher movie conventions from Israel

17 Jun 2011

The problem with slasher films is that they perhaps have the most rigid rules in cinema. It’s so easy to fall into the standard clichés as set out by Halloween and Friday the 13th. Not that it means you can’t make a fun, entertaining film within these…

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011 - James Mullighan interview

With just under a month to go, the new EIFF director tell us his plans

26 Apr 2011

With just over a month and a half to go until the big event, James Mullighan the new Director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival tells Paul Dale about his plans So how’s it going James? Great – it’s been a busy time for us and we are…

The best upcoming events in Scotland in 2011

Highlights of the 2011 cultural calandar from Film, Music, Comedy, Theatre and Visual Art

3 Jan 2011

Huge gigs, inspiring theatre productions, comedy legends and two cute little waving bears – just a few of the things coming up in ‘11 that we can barely contain our excitement about

Skeletons, The Dry Land, Get Low and Monsters among EIFF Award Winners

29 Jun 2010

Brit comedy Skeletons bagged one of the top gongs at the 64th Edinburgh International Film Festival awards. The winners were announced at Cineworld prior to the screening of Third Star at the closing Gala last weekend, with EIFF patrons Tilda…

Nick Cave makes Irregular appearance in Edinburgh

24 Jun 2010

No, you didn’t just hallucinate that. Nick Cave’s popping down to the Roxy. This Canongate Books/Edinburgh International Film Festival multimedia event brings the Aussie music/film/literature icon, who will be reading from his novel, The Death of Bunny…

Monsters director Gareth Edwards and producer Graham King at EIFF

Edinburgh International Film Festival Blog

20 Jun 2010

Saturday 19 June The days, as Calvin & Hobbes astutely observed, are just packed. Saturday began with two great things: the first was Toy Story 3, which was possibly the best threequel I’ve ever seen (I’m meeting its two chief animators later today…

Privilege, The Squeeze and Private Road among highlights of EIFF After the Wave retrospective

10 Jun 2010

Paul Dale rediscovers the unappreciated strangeness of 70s UK cinema through the After the Wave retrospective

Toy Story 3 and The Illusionist among Edinburgh International Film Festival 2010 highlights

5 May 2010

With The Edinburgh Film Festival 2010, which runs between 16-27 June, only a matter of weeks away, the red carpets are getting waterproofed and the popcorn machines are getting serviced. Now in its 64th year, the twelve day festival, packed with…

EIFF 2009 - Peter McDougall and John Mackenzie

11 Jun 2009

Poor, white, Protestant and on the run from Greenock’s shipyards, Peter McDougall may not have possessed the background to execute the first two Reithian tenets of public service and probity, but he certainly knew about universality. The mythology goes…

Man on Wire - James Marsh interview

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

Philippe Petit was the man who dared to walk a tightrope between the Twin Towers. Director James Marsh tells Kaleem Aftab how he made a film of this incredible feat

Festivals

5 Jun 2008

Until 8 June Leith Festival Various venues, Leith, Edinburgh, prices vary www.leithfestival.com Leith Festival showcases its trademark brew of home-grown talent and big name headliners with over 100 musical acts, 50 comedians and a dozen visual…

Focus on events at Edinburgh International Film Festival

22 Jul 2011

One of the departures the revamped Edinburgh International Film Festival took this year, in moving away from the glitz and glamour of red carpet premieres and must-see movies, was an increased emphasis on film-related events. By moving the festival’s…

Strong EIFF short film programme includes Night Mayor, The Great Race and Pentecost

Edinburgh International Film Festival shorts round-up

27 Jun 2011

Sometimes the short film programme can look like a lesser sibling of the main festival, but this year it was one of the few aspects of EIFF that was in better health than ever. With a fancy new venue in the form of an upgraded George Square Theatre, a…

Highlights among mixed bag suggest hope for return to cinephilia at EIFF

Reflections on Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011

27 Jun 2011

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And when life gives you a programme for an international film festival that misspells the Coen Brothers name (among other heinous typographical and grammatical crimes), best take the bull by the horns and make…

How should the EIFF move forward?

Reflections on Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011

27 Jun 2011

When the lights came up on The Guard, this year’s opening film, my overriding thought was, 'that was fine'. It was quite funny and had a good cast, but was entirely unadventurous filmmaking. Fine, but nothing more. As a tone-setter for the 'reinvented…

Convento - Jarred Alterman interview

Portrait of Dutch artist family and kinetic sculpture

25 Jun 2011

Jarred Alterman, director of the documentary Convento, takes me round the tie-in exhibition at Teviot Row House, full of the kinetic sculptures by Christiaan Zwanikken that populate Alterman’s dreamlike film. Passing a gang of creepy, animated and…

Bikini Machine compose a 'cinéconcert' score for Desperado

24 Jun 2011

Each year, the French Institute for Scotland takes part in the Edinburgh International Film Festival and strives to bring the media of music and film together to form one piece of intercontinental art. This year, the Institute have invited five…

War correspondent Martin Bell to give Oliver Stone another chance

Martin Bell will be introducing Oliver Stone's Salvador at the EIFF

24 Jun 2011

‘I tend to walk out of films about wars that I reported on. I walked out of Oliver Stone’s Salvador when I first saw it in 1986 that’s why it will be interesting to present it and revisit it in Edinburgh. I remember he satirised a female reporter I know…

Troll Hunter - André Øvredal interview

Director of the Norwegian moc doc taking film festivals by storm

23 Jun 2011

Something that’s pretty thin on the ground at Edinburgh this year are genuine ‘festival finds’; films from unknown filmmakers that seem to come out of nowhere and really impress audiences. TrollHunter is perhaps the closest thing to that in this year’s…

Project Nim - James Marsh interview

Man on Wire director charts 1970s chimp experiment in extraordinary film

21 Jun 2011

‘I’m here bleary-eyed straight from four weeks of shooting a feature film in Dublin!’ So claims Project Nim director James Marsh when I meet him, but you wouldn’t know it from the espresso-fuelled 30 minutes of rapid discussion that follows, in which…

Our Day Will Come - Romain Gavras interview

Provocative debut feature from director of MIA's Born Free furthers redhead theme

20 Jun 2011

From the stage of the Filmhouse on Friday night, Romain Gavras introduces the UK premiere of his debut feature film as a “romantic comedy”. Those who have seen his controversial music video for MIA’s Born Free are not fooled. And shortly, that will be…

Oliver Sherman - Ryan Redford interview

Director of drama charting reunion between two war veterans

20 Jun 2011

In retrospect, the odds were against us: Fresh-faced freelancer meets first time director straight from transatlantic travel and at the end of a long day’s junket. Ryan Redford, a 31-year-old director showing so few signs of media training one would…

Perfect Sense an ambitious film that demands a lot from audience

David Mackenzie’s feature thought-provoking and quietly moving

20 Jun 2011

The weekend saw one of the biggest events of this year’s EIFF programme, as the massive Festival Theatre played host to the European premiere of David Mackenzie’s new film, the Glasgow-set sci-fi romance Perfect Sense, on Saturday night. I interviewed…

Hell and Back Again depicts life of a Marine in Afghanistan

EIFF screening of photojournalist Danfung Dennis’ first feature film

17 Jun 2011

History suggests that the constant drip of unfettered, prime-time images depicting death and defeat made a vital contribution to turning the tide of American popular opinion against the war in Vietnam. It’s hard to imagine a similar decisive impact in…

Phase 7 (Fase 7)

Dark pandemic tale from Argentina

16 Jun 2011

There’s a vague ‘pandemic’ theme in this year’s EIFF programme (with talks and screenings of the likes of 28 Days Later, The Divide and Panic in the Streets) and Phase 7 is the first to raise its diseased head above the parapet. As a global epidemic…

Timeline - Summer music festivals 2011 from Scotland and beyond

A chronological list of the best festivals in Scotland and beyond

27 May 2011

A chronological list of the most significant festivals happening in Scotland this summer, along with the biggest and best from the rest of the UK and beyond.

Kim Cattrall, star of Sex and the City, discusses her new film Meet Monica Velour

Indie comedy about an aging porn star is set to screen at the EIFF

27 May 2011

‘To have a role like this in your fifties is quite extraordinary,’ says Kim Cattrall, who is 53 and has made a virtue of playing sexy older women in a business that refuses to equate the one with the other. ‘When Meet Monica Velour showed at the Tribeca…

Domino Records host Edinburgh International Film Festival event

Event aims to showcase effective combination of music and film

27 May 2011

A good advert can, sometimes, sell more than jeans, or alcohol, or cars. Think of the 1999 number one song, 'Flat Beat', which gained enormous popularity after a puppet called Flat Eric danced to it in a Levi’s advert. Levi’s shifted their jeans, the…

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011: The rough guide

What you need to know about this year's festival

27 May 2011

1 The festival has a new artistic director, James Mullighan, who is from Adelaide. Previously he ran the independent filmmakers’ network Shooting People and was a journalist. He says: ‘Throughout its history [the Festival] has been provocative…

Interview - EIFF 2011 curator Alan Warner on the films of Jerzy Skolimowski

Deep End, The Shout and The Adventures of Gerard to screen at EIFF

27 May 2011

People started throwing around that name ‘curator’, which gave the impression that Isabella Rossellini and I were ensconced together in a hotel in the south of France devising programmes. Of course, the truth was that I met Mark Cousins in an Edinburgh…

Profile: Philip Seymour Hoffman, director and star of Jack Goes Boating

The much-respected actor screens his directorial debut at the EIFF

27 May 2011

Born Fairport, New York, 23 July 1967. Background Known as the ‘character actor’s character actor’, Hoffman has been a jobbing actor since the early 1990s. After playing bit parts in television shows, shorts and features, Hoffman got his breakthrough…

EIFF 2011 - Five to try: Reel Science

Our picks for the Edinburgh International Film Festival's outsider strands

27 May 2011

Oi! Get Your Grubby Hands out of My Brain A film-initiated debate about the growing commercial application of neuro-imaging, epigenetics and other futuristically-named brain technologies. Do you really want to know if you are going to pass on madness…

EIFF 2011 - Five to try: Outside The Box

Our picks for the Edinburgh International Film Festival's outsider strands

27 May 2011

Duncan Speakman: Our Broken Voice Speakman’s project is a ‘subtlemob’ – ‘A film that’s happening in a public space where you’re both a performer and an audience member,’ he says. Still baffled? Imagine arriving at a designated public location, with an…

EIFF 2011 - Five to try: Conflict and Reportage

Our picks for the Edinburgh International Film Festival's outsider strands

27 May 2011

Conflict and Reportage Frontline Club: Martin Bell presents Salvador Broadcasting and politics’ ‘man in the white suit’ says of this event: ‘I tend to walk out of films about wars that I reported on. I walked out of Oliver Stone’s Salvador when I…