Scottish Film Events: September 2026

Anyone jonesing for more cinema madness after last month’s Edinburgh International Film Festival can look forward to the rush of film events that come thick and fast in the autumn, beginning with IberoDocs (16-26 Sep) in Edinburgh, Sea Change (18-20 Sep) in Tiree and Glasgow Youth Film Festival (25-27 Sep). Our September Issue has some IberoDocs top picks which will be making their way online before the beginning of the festival.

Film festivals programme films, but Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival make them too. The excellent outfit based in Hawick has been commissioning ambitious work for the last few years with its The Teviot, the Flag and the Rich, Rich Soil residencies. Three of these films – Maybelle Peters’ We Deh Here, Julia Parks’ The Wool Aliens and Luke Fowler and Corin Sworn’s On Weaving – will screen at Dundee Contemporary Arts on 1 September as a single programme, with Fowler and Sworn joining for a Q&A after the screening. Expect to see these films on tour at other cinemas in the coming months. 

We lost Sam Neill a few months ago, but his movies will always be with us. Leith Kino celebrates this mighty Kiwi actor with the Sam Neill weekender. They’ve gone for a pair of great performances in horror films: In the Mouth of Madness (26 Sep, Argonaut Books) and Possession (27 Sep, Leith Depot). Best season name of the year has to go to Offline for OUR TOILETS ARE SHIT, an ongoing fundraising programme to improve the DIY Govanhill arts space’s loos. Funeral Parade of Roses (17 Sep) is this month’s film. 

Shoutout to the great Reclaim the Frame, who’re presenting two screenings of Hettie Macdonald’s beloved 90s gay teen love story Beautiful Thing this month to mark its 30th anniversary. On 2 September it's screening at GFT from a 35mm print, with Reclaim the Frame's Eilidh Akilade (who's also The Skinny’s excellent Intersections editor) providing an introduction, and then on 14 September it’s at Filmhouse.

GFT also have a cracking season of Rogue Hollywood films in September. We’re talking the uncompromising and troubling visions of contemporary America that were being made at the fag end of the New Hollywood era. Films like Richard Brooks’ Looking for Mr Goodbar (7 Sep), Paul Schrader’s Hardcore (15 Sep) and William Friedkin’s Cruising (29 Sep).

Beautiful Thing. Image courtesy of Channel 4.

One of the most moving cinema experiences this month will surely be Bel, Louise Lockwood's documentary on the late singer-songwriter Beldina Odenyo who performed under the moniker Heir of the Cursed. Lockwood and Odenyo’s sister Leah McAleer, who we see in the film attempting to put together a posthumous Heir of the Cursed album, will be taking part in Q&A screenings at Filmhouse (4 Sep) and GFT (10 Sep) this month, with both screenings hosted by journalist Arusa Qureshi.

Auteurists should look out for a full Andrei Tarkovsky retrospective at GFT (2-28 Sep); a trio of Claude Chabrol films at Filmhouse (11-14 Sep); and a quartet of Howard Hawks films at Grosvenor Picture Theatre (7-28 Sep). Silent movie fans, meanwhile, should run to the Hippodrome in Bo'ness for a presentation of Erich von Stroheim's rapturous Queen Kelly, which will have an intro from Pamela Hutchinson, live music from Neil Brand and a Q&A with both following the screening (26 Sep).

And finally, Filmhouse are celebrating Jane Austen on screen. The season includes Georgia Oakley’s new take on Sense and Sensibility, Ang Lee’s 1995 version, Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice and the greatest Austen adaptation of all: Amy Heckerling’s loose Emma reworking, Clueless. We love Heckerling’s film so much, in fact, that The Skinny is hosting the screening of Clueless on 29 September, which will be followed by a Skinny Social, where we’ll be encouraging everyone in the screening to join The Skinny’s team down in Filmhouse’s bar to discuss the movie. We hope to see you there!