EIFF announce this year's free outdoor screenings

Edinburgh International Film Festival announce the lineup for its annual free summer outdoor screenings, featuring blockbusters, family films and a few classics

Article by The Skinny | 04 May 2017

Edinburgh International Film Festival returns for its 70th year in June, and as has become tradition, it’ll be serving up an amuse bouche of alfresco screenings before the main event.

The weekend before EIFF kicks off proper, St Andrew Square Gardens becomes an outdoor screening room for a pick and mix of movies that should offer up pleasures for a whole range of movie fans.

We’d urge everyone to make it along to opening film What’s Up Doc?, Peter Bogdanovich’s rarely screened screwball masterpiece. Vividly set on the vertiginous streets of San Francisco, it plays like a riff on Bringing Up Baby as geeky hunk Ryan O'Neal and freewheeling polymath Barbra Streisand get entangled in a kooky plot involving four identical tartan overnight bags.

Other classics screening over the three days are knockout Hollywood musical Singin' in the Rain, Amy Heckerling’s whip smart teen movie Clueless, Ray Harryhausen adventure romp Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger and fairy tale Labyrinth, starring David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly and a whole host of felt creatures courtesy of Jim Henson.

There’s also special ‘dance along’ screenings of Mamma Mia and Dirty Dancing in association with Dance Base – if you’re into that sort of thing – and a cosplay party set to much-loved 90s animation Beauty and the Beast.

There’s also the usual splattering of recent blockbusters (Avengers Assemble, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), family films (Trolls, The Jungle Book) and a couple of smaller indie gems (Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which screened at last year's EIFF, and the sublime animation Kubo and the Two Strings).

Best of all, this jam-packed lineup of screenings is free and requires no tickets – just turn up and join in the fun, although if past outdoor screenings are anything to go by, we'd advise heading down early.

The full list of screenings are below. Edinburgh International Film Festival takes place 21 Jun-2 Jul; the full programme is released on 31 May.

Fri 16 Jun
4.30pm: What’s Up Doc? (Peter Bogdanovich)
6.20pm: Labyrinth (Jim Henson)
8.15pm: Avengers Assemble (Joss Whedon)

Sat 17 Jun
10.30am: Trolls – sing-a-long (Walt Dohrn, Mike Mitchell)
12.20pm: Beauty and the Beast – dress up party (Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise)
2.15pm: The Jungle Book (Jon Favreau)
4.25pm: Mamma Mia – dance along (Phyllida Lloyd)
6.40pm: Clueless (Amy Heckerling)
8.45pm: Dirty Dancing (Emile Ardolino)

Sun 18 Jun
10.30am: Cars (Joe Ranft, John Lasseter)
12.45pm: Kubo and the Two Strings (Travis Knight)
2.45pm: Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (Ray Harryhausen, Sam Wanamaker)
4.45pm: Singin' in the Rain (Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen)
6.40pm: Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Taika Waititi)
8.30pm: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards)

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