EIFF

Festival Timeline

Claire Sawers jogs down memory lane with some landmark Festival moments

13 Jul 2009

62 years of Festival memories, including the debut of a young comedy troop with a future Oscar winner in its ranks and a love affair with a pig.

WALL-E - Angus MacLane interview

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

Could you fall in love with a robot? Animation studio Pixar is betting that you will. The little metal critter with designs on your heart is called WALL-E, and this summer, he’ll be giving Indiana Jones and Carrie Bradshaw a run for their money at the…

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

14 Kilometres (14 Kilometros)

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

This issue-driven Spanish drama isn’t afraid to draw on several stock clichés of the well-trodden road movie genre. Three Africans undertake the arduous journey from Niger to Spain, crossing deserts, trying to get through corrupt border controls and…

Before The Rains

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Santosh Sivan, US/India) 98min Set against the backdrop of the decline of the British empire and growth of the nationalist movement in southern India in 1937, this tale of forbidden love between an English spice merchant (Linus Roache) and a local…

Bigga Than Ben: A Russian's Guide to Ripping Off London

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(SA Halewood, UK) 85min Allegedly based on the diary of a young Moscovite who came to London in the late 1990s, Bigga than Ben is, for the majority of its running time, a distracting black comedy. Cobakka (Ben Barnes) and Spiker (Andrei Chadov) are a…

Death Defying Acts

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Gillian Armstrong, UK, Australia) 97min It’s 1926, and the world tour of escape artist Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce) brings him to Edinburgh. There he’s charmed by local con-artist Mary McGarvie (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who poses as a psychic to put…

Donkey Punch

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Oliver Blackburn, UK) 99min New British director Oliver Blackburn marks himself out as a name to watch in this misogynistic horror set in Marbella. When three lasses from Leeds (Sian Breckin, Jaime Winstone and Nichola Burley) decide to board a yacht…

Eat, For This is My Body

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Michelange Quay, Haiti/France) 105min Quay’s semi-abstract look at colonial elements in Haiti is comparable to two 1980s touchstones, Marion Hänsel’s Dust and Claire Denis’ Chocolat. While there is an impressive opening shot that glides over the…

Elite Squad (Tropa D'Elite)

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(José Padilha, Brazil) 118min Based on Luiz Eduardo Soares’ bestseller, Elite Squad is a favela thriller from the director of 2002 documentary Bus 174. It’s 1997 in Rio de Janeiro, months before a visit from Pope John Paul II. The rundown housing…

Fears of the Dark

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Various, France) 85min This episodic animation is destined for cult status. Five respected graphic novelists have each penned a story detailing what made them scared at night. Dogs, mad girls and silence all feature strongly. Each story has then been…

Jesus Christ Saviour

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Peter Geyer, Germany) 84min At the beginning of Werner Herzog’s engrossing documentary homage to his favourite actor and nemesis Klaus Kinski, My Best Fiend, there is a tantalising glimpse of Kinski performing his infamous 1971 Jesus concert. Finally…

Matter of fact - Documentaries at the EIFF

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

When the Edinburgh International Film Festival opened its doors for the first time in 1947, documentary films were the only things on the menu. Much has changed since then, but the EIFF has continued its commitment to the feature documentary form. Every…

Patti Smith: Dream of Life

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Steven Sebring, USA) 109min Patti Smith, the singer-poet and one-time ‘godmother of punk’, bares her soul in this intimate self-portrait, culled from over 11 years of filming with her friend, the photographer Steve Sebring. Beginning in 1995, the film…

Shiver (Eskalofrio)

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Isidro Ortiz, Spain) 91min Once again Spain is proving to be a breeding ground for newly discovered horror talent. Isidro Ortiz puts in his most satisfying feature yet as paranoia and the old staple of something lurking in the woods are brought into…

Somers Town

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Shane Meadows, UK) 75min While Shane Meadows’ last outing, This is England, showed the racist side of British nationalism, his follow-up, the black-and-white Somers Town, demonstrates just how nice the Brits can be to immigrants. Starting life as a…

Standard Operating Procedure

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Errol Morris, USA) 116min The great documentary filmmaker Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War) turns his investigative eye towards the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. The coup of the film is that Morris interviews some of the soldiers who…

The Escapist - Brian Cox interview

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

As Brian Cox welcomes me into the interview room at London’s Gibson Guitar Studio, he points out a picture of Syd Barrett, ‘a son of Cambridge’, on the wall. It’s been just a few months since the Dundee-born actor was treading the boards on Broadway to…

The Visitor - Thomas McCarthy interview

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

Thomas McCarthy works as an actor or a writer or a director, but feels that to do all three jobs in one film would be a little too much for him to take. As an actor, despite turns in such stellar productions as Syriana, All The Kings Men and Flags of…

Tiramisu

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Paula van der Oest, Netherlands) 90min Abandoned by her theatre director husband for a younger woman, middle-aged actress and retail therapy junkie Anne seems unconcerned by the impending loss of the Amsterdam houseboat she and her long-suffering…

The Wackness

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Jonathan Levine, USA) 110min Jonathan Levine’s follow-up to his superior teen horror flick All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is just as assured a film, although this wigged-out high school movie is greatly enriched by being a far more personal project.

The Edge of Love - Sharman Macdonald interview

Edinburgh International Film Festival

5 Jun 2008

At the programme launch of the 2008 Edinburgh International Film Festival artistic director Hannah McGill thanked the makers of The Edge of Love for providing her with the perfect opening night film. What McGill no doubt meant by this was that The Edge…

Chris Waitt interview

Edinburgh International Film Festival

5 Jun 2008

If someone gave you money to interview all your exes and find out what you did wrong in those relationships, would you do it? Filmmaker Chris Waitt didn’t hang around for an offer and approached Warp X with the pitch for his documentary A Complete…

Short film competition winners announced

8 May 2008

The List and Metro Ecosse are pleased to announce the winners of our short film competition. They are Heather Day with Big Mistake, wildlife guide Jan Storie’s Learning Curves and schoolteacher Margherita Still's Milk Girl. Their films will premiere…

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…