Edinburgh Film Festival unveils full 2015 programme
The full programme for the 69th Edinburgh International Film Festival has been announced ahead of the 2015 festival this June.
Among the films in the running for this year’s Michael Powell Award for best British Film at EIFF are 45 Years by director Andrew Haigh, Black Mountain Poets – the third part of an improvised trilogy from Jamie Adams – and the film debut of acclaimed author Helen Walsh in The Violators. They join the previously-announced Hector, starring Peter Mullan, and Swung, the adaptation of Scottish author Ewan Morrison’s debut novel.
The international competition features new films from Kristen Wiig and Tim Roth among others, while the documentary strand includes films on sci-fi comic 2000AD and the National Lampoon magazine and film series, as well as a screen adaptation of performance poet Ross Sutherland’s Stand By For Tape Back-up.
Several guests have already been announced, including Ewan McGregor, who comes to the festival with Last Days in the Desert, the new film from Columbian director Rodrigo García, in which the Transpotting and Star Wars star plays both Jesus and the Devil. McGregor will take part in a onstage 'In Person' interview, as will legendary British star Malcolm McDowell (If...., A Clockwork Orange).
The festival will open and close with a pair of high-profile Scottish films – Robert Carlyle’s directorial debut The Legend of Barney Thomson is the opening night film, while Iona by director Scott Graham, starring Ruth Negga of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, is the closing night gala.
There are also gala screenings for Pixar’s latest Inside/Out, directed by Pete Docter (Up, Monsters Inc.), and Love & Mercy, starring both John Cusack and Paul Dano as Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, plus a retrospective of some of the finest American TV movies of the 60s and 70s.
Last week EIFF confirmed details of its Scottish talent line-up, with new work by Greg Hemphill, Peter Mullan and Martin Compston set for the festival alongside documentaries on Bill Drummond of the KLF and seminal Edinburgh record label Fast Product.
The 2015 Edinburgh International Film Festival runs from 17-28 June; tickets are on sale from Fri 29 May.