Student talent in the limelight at Edinburgh International Film Festival
The Edinburgh International Film Festival returns with a reimagined event for its 77th edition, featuring a range of University talent.
This year’s programme honours the festival’s history, showcasing the very best talent in cinema, from a perspective rooted in Scotland that celebrates of all kinds of filmmaking from around the world.
The 2024 programme showcases 37 new feature films, with 18 world premieres, four special retrospective screenings, five short film programmes and in conversation events.
University Venues
The programme champions a new generation of UK and international talent, including a strong selection of first and second features. It will also showcase new work from filmmakers from the UK, US, Canada, Mexico, Norway, China, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Iran and beyond.
This year’s festival sees the event reconceived, with the week long-celebration of film offering screenings at new venues across the city, encouraging audiences to experience its world-class cinema programme alongside the best of Edinburgh’s other August festivals.
Screenings are hosted at two venues on University campus – at Inspace, part of the Institute for Design Informatics, and delivered partnership with Monkey Barrel Comedy Club, and 50 George Square, part of Assembly George Square Gardens.
Glittering premieres
The festival opens with the UK premiere of Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun, starring Saoirse Ronan and adapted from the best-selling memoir of University of Edinburgh alumni, Scottish journalist and author Amy Liptrot.
Two further graduate films from within the University will also be showcased as part of the festival, with new commissions as part of the Bridging the Gap programme, a collection of short documentaries that explore the power and politics of return.
Headland, from director Mariana Duarte, receives its world premiere, as does director Theo Panagopoulos’ The Flowers Stand Silently. Mariana is a current PhD student within PG Documentary Film at Edinburgh College of Art, while Theo graduated from the same programme in 2019.
Outstanding contribution
In addition, University alumni Lynda Myles, a ground-breaking film producer, curator, writer and former Director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, will be presented with BAFTA Scotland Award for Outstanding Contribution to Film at a special event on Monday 19 August.
When she became director in 1973, Lynda was the first woman ever appointed as director of a film festival anywhere in the world, and is honoured in recognition of her significant and inspiring contribution to film in Scotland and beyond.
The University commissioned The Lynda Myles Project, a documentary celebrating her career and achievements from academic Susan Kemp which formed part of the opening event at last year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, and which forms part of the University’s Heritage Collections.