Ewan McGregor and Kenneth Branagh among names at revived EIFF

The annual festival, which takes place in August, is now in its third year of the new format, following the collapse of the arts charity behind it in 2022.

As the full programme is launched, Paul Ridd, director of the EIFF, revealed The Incomer, a film about two siblings living on an isolated Scottish island starring Gayle Rankin and Harry Potter actor Domhnall Gleeson, is to open the festival after the “very unique and bold” low-budget production was screened at Sundance in January.

Mr Ridd, who was appointed in November 2023, said: “We’re feeling very excited about this year’s edition of the film festival. We’re three years now into the rebooted, reimagined festival and we’ve got some great films to show. Over half the selection is world premieres, plus we’ve got some great films from festivals from the past few months.”

He said it was an “amazing opportunity” to have McGregor, who starred as Renton in Trainspotting, to speak at EIFF. He is to discuss his life and career in an event sponsored by BAFTA Scotland.

Branagh will be awarded the inaugural EIFF Outstanding Contribution to Cinema Award while his 1996 classic Hamlet, which features the star as actor, writer and director, will shown in the morning on the day of his appearance at the festival.

Mr Ridd said: “It feels like it’s so deeply connected to his history as a theatre director and deeply embedded in the wider arts and that connects to everything we’re trying to do in connecting to the wider Fringe events and the other arts events going on.”

A 30th anniversary screening of Trainspotting with live commentary from cast members will also be held at Leith Theatre, with author Irvine Welsh to play a DJ set after the event.

Bel, Louise Lockwood’s portrait of Kenyan-Scottish musician, singer and songwriter Beldina Odenyo, has already been announced as this year’s closing film, while Sophie Heldman’s The Education of Jane Cumming, set in an Edinburgh boarding school in 1810, will also be shown.

A film of Scottish Ballet’s retelling of Romeo and Juliet, These Violent Delights, directed by the national company’s director Christopher Hampson, will also be part of the programme.

A key element of the EIFF will be the ultra-competitive The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, which returns to present a panorama of contemporary film and exciting new filmmakers.

The competition comprises ten feature-length world premieres, with the winning filmmaker awarded £50,000 to support their future projects. Decided by audience vote, the winner will be announced at the end of the Festival, with the award generously supported by The Sean Connery Foundation.

The winner will join previous winners Abdolreza Kahani’s Mortician (2025) and Jack King’s The Ceremony (2024), both of which have gone on to garner further acclaim and distribution success.

This year’s competition features include Lindsay Ryan’s poignant comedy debut Capsized, starring Rhys Ifans, about a houseboat holiday thrown into disarray; Thom Lunshof’s haunting feature debut First Zone in which a woman navigates a flooded and desolate post-apocalyptic landscape and Paul Wright’s vivid psychological portrait Mission, in which George MacKay gives a standout performance. Also among entries is Simon Rynink’s hilarious 1999-set Out There in which Michael Sheen joins a gang of misfits to uncover a UFO conspiracy in a sleepy Welsh town.

Mr Ridd also said the departure of Edinburgh TV Festival from the city will create “opportunities” for the EIFF, adding that “boundaries” between film and TV are “blurring more and more”.

He said there would be “no doubt” that there would be “something exciting going forward” in terms of plugging the gap left by the 50-year-old event.

The Edinburgh TV Festival, which will now be known as the TV Festival, recently announced it is to leave Scotland for Greater Manchester from 2027, citing affordability issues in the capital. The move came following a consultation period, which saw Edinburgh, Manchester and Newcastle shortlisted as possible long-term options for the event. However, it was announced earlier this week that Greater Manchester had been successful in its bid for the event.

Mr Ridd said any substitute for the TV Festival would be “deeply connected” with the EIFF, which this year announced the inaugural UK Film Conference as part of its industry programme.

“Anything that emerges in the future in Edinburgh once the TV Festival does leave and go to Manchester, I think would be deeply connected with what we’re doing,” he said.

Mr Ridd added: “It’s early days, but I think there’s a really budding, credible amount of talent, infrastructure and production going on in Scotland, both in film and in the TV sector and the boundaries between those two forms are blurring more and more.

“So many of the executives that were coming to the city and engaging with the TV Festival were the same people who were engaging with what we’re doing in terms of our industry offering, so I think there’s plenty of room to be optimistic about it all.”

He added: “I think we are all aware that this [Edinburgh] is the most exciting place to be, in terms of the arts in August in the world. There is always such as huge amount of stuff on offer and I would hope that would also be a compelling reason for people to continue to come.

“The TV Festival emerged out of the film festival from all the work Linda Myles did all those decades ago, so I don’t think there’s any doubt that there’ll be opportunities going forward that will emerge from this change.”

Ms Myles was the first female director of the film festival between 1973 to 1980 and was involved in the creation of the TV Festival in 1976.

Mr Ridd, who was appointed to lead the festival in November 2023, said over the last couple of years, the festival had worked “more closely” with the TV festival. He pointed to former creative director Rowan Woods - who stepped down from the TV Festival shortly after it announced plans to relocate - having hosting EIFF events last year.

This year’s EIFF programme also includes an element of TV industry content, such as documentary-maker Ken Burns presenting an episode from his series The American Revolution. Mr Ridd said the festival was already actively looking to grow its TV-related offering before the TV Festival announced its departure.

The EIFF runs from 13 to 19 August at six venues across Edinburgh, including The Filmhouse, Cineworld and the Cameo Picturehouse.