Film Festival Goes Live

20 July 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbgXOHf55k8 Edinburgh International Film Festival has announced the programme for its fully in-person 75th Anniversary edition this year, running from 12th to 20th August. The dynamic programme of cinema screenings, live performance and industry dialogues in Edinburgh in the heart of the August festival season welcomes attending UK & international filmmakers to present their work. Amongst the headlines are:

87 new features, 12 short film programmes, and two large scale retrospectives that celebrate the 2022 Theme of the 50th Anniversary of the Women’s Film Festival in new Creative Director Kristy Matheson’s inaugural edition
Critically acclaimed gibberish comedy ‘Nude Tuesday’ announced as Central Gala to complement the previously announced Opening and Closing Galas of ‘Aftersun’ and ‘After Yang’
10 international feature films with over 50% female Directors or Co-Directors for the brand-new competitive section for ‘The Powell and Pressburger Award for Best Feature Film’

The programme of 87 new feature films is structured across 3 Galas, 5 themed strands, 1 Big Screen Presentation and 10 films in competition as part of the new The Powell & Pressburger Award for Best Feature Film.

The Three Gala Events

Opening Gala Aftersun - The critically acclaimed feature debut from Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells opens this year’s festival, fresh from winning First Prize when it premiered as part of International Critics’ Week during this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Central Gala: Nude Tuesday - Armağan Ballantyne’s critically acclaimed gibberish comedy ‘Nude Tuesday’ will be the inaugural Central Gala, having received 5 star acclaim since debuting at Tribeca and Sydney Film Festivals last month.
Closing Gala: After Yang - Kogonada’s exquisite and playful film stars Colin Farrell and Jodi Turner Smith and brings the festival to a close in style, having won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

The Five Themed Strands

This year’s programme is structured by strands with each strand having its own Classic Film and Headline film which offers audiences a flavour of what to expect. Our festival framework puts films in direct conversation, encourages pathways to navigate the programme and offers audiences a chance to meet their cinematic tribe.

The Conversation: If your festival experience isn’t complete without a post-screening foyer debate, then look no further. Indigenous youth fights back against government-backed farmers in The Territory, a young mother struggles with childcare in drama turned thriller Until Tomorrow and wonder trio Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin reunite to investigate the fight for women’s rights they kickstarted half a decade ago in Still Working 9 to 5. From searing dramas to eye-opening documentaries, The Conversation is cinema with something to say.
The Chamber: A home for satisfying bigscreen experiences, classical storytelling and approachable documentaries. Enjoy the high-octane humour of Penélope Cruz sparring egos in Official Competition, the rousing biopic of the trailblazing Maori leader Whina or the majesty of nature doc Heart of Oak, with UK visions spanning the spellbinding landscape of the Isle of Berneray (Dùthchas | Home) and village hall meetings in a Bradford cineclub (A Bunch of Amateurs). The Chamber is your cozy space for cinematic encounters.
Heartbreakers: The destination for those seeking all the feels, Heartbreakers films include a profound romance between women in moving historical doc Nelly & Nadine, the subtle shifts between colleagues in pandemic-struck Hong Kong in The Narrow Road, millennial Insta-angst in a friendship group in Millie Lies Low and a man in an unusual meteorological relationship in The Cloud and the Man. And don’t forget to bring your hanky for Oscar-longlisted Panamanian tearjerker Plaza Catedral. Hey Edinburgh, are you ready to be heartbroken?
Night Moves: Films for the back-row dwellers and mosh pit regulars. Black-hearted lovers can binge Give Me Pity! one of two films screening at this year’s festival from auteur of weird Amanda Kramer, a portrait of a lovable oddball in documentary A Life on the Farm and the original patient zero of vampirism, Nosferatu himself. The horror hounds will have plenty to gorge on with the terror of motherhood in Huesera, the gooey gore of Sissy and the mystical western vibes of Saloum. Night owls, these ones are for you.
Postcards from the Edge: Featuring wildly different approaches, the films selected here are distinguished by courage, style and a willingness to go there. Alain Gomis deconstructs racism via a Thelonious Monk TV appearance (Rewind & Play), a woman wakes up in the body of a 7-year-old girl (Our Happiest Days) and who knew Udo Kier (A E I O U) is actually the perfect neighbour? Meanwhile, striking
debuts from South Korea, UK, Australia and Iran transport cinema to fresh places. Wish you were here!

The Powell & Pressburger Award for Best Feature Film

EIFF reimagines its major award, The Michael Powell Award for Best British feature as The Powell & Pressburger Award for Best Feature Film, with a renewed commitment to internationalism and cultural exchange, the principles on which the Edinburgh Festivals were first founded. This competition of 10 films is composed of a mix of UK and Irish filmmakers and international talents and honours imagination and creativity in filmmaking. The films selected for the 2022 competition are daring, eclectic and genuinely speak to the creativity that’s central to the works of the award’s namesakes – Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

Plus Much More

Refaming the Gaze - This retrospective celebrates the 50- year anniversary of the highly influential Women’s Event organised by Claire Johnson, Lynda Myles and Laura Mulvey in 1972 as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Rather than try to revisit or replicate the event, the programme takes one of the central questions of feminist filmmaking as its starting point: how to deconstruct the traditional cinematic gaze through experiments with film form? Moving decade-by-decade from the 1970s to the present, we find ourselves asking: what is ‘female’? What is feminism? What is film?
Sx Fims by Kinuyo Tanaka - exploring this year’s festival theme is a major retrospective of the work of performer and film director Kinuyo Tanaka (1909 - 1977) who played an essential role in the history of Japanese cinema.
Film Fest in the City - presenting an ambitious and free programme of family favourites, timeless classics and blockbusters, in partnership with Essential Edinburgh, and supported by Event Scotland, the Festival makes its return to one of the city’s most iconic locations, St Andrew Square, with ‘Film Fest in the City’ between 12 and 14 August
Short Films - Short films have always been central to the EIFF programme and this year is no exception, with 12 fantastic programmes that span fiction, animation, documentary and experimental.