A new Indian Film Festival is coming to Edinburgh

Scotland does not want for film festivals. This month alone, we have the French Film Festival UK, Scotland Loves Anime, Taiwan Film Festival in Scotland, International Film Festival Glasgow and the Havana Glasgow Film Festival, to name just a few. In saying that, there are still plenty of corners of world cinema that are underrepresented on our screens. One of these is Indian cinema, an omission which is even more egregious considering the Indian film industry produces more work than any other. Therefore, the inception of next month's Indian Film Festival at Filmhouse in Edinburgh is most welcome.

“The scale, ambition and diversity of Indian film make it one of the most exciting national cinema cultures in the world,” says Andrew Simpson, executive director at Filmhouse. “Unfortunately, outside of big releases, audiences rarely get to experience these films on the big screen. Celebrating a range of Indian regions, languages and genres, we hope to start to correct that with this programme.”

This new festival, supported by the Consulate General of India, Edinburgh, will take the form of a three-day celebration running from 4 to 6 December. It’ll include seven feature films, ranging from sports biopics to black comedies to period dramas. The films include work in the Hindi, Tamil, Assamese and Gujarati languages, and all films will be presented with English subtitles.

Screenings kick off with the tenth anniversary of the sports movie Dangal, the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time. Based on a true story, the film stars the legendary Aamir Khan as a father who trains his two daughters, Geeta and Babita Phogat, to become elite wrestlers. Geeta went on to win India’s first-ever gold medal in women’s wrestling at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, and her sister went on to win gold, too, at the following games in 2014 in Glasgow.

“With Glasgow having hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2026 and Amdavad preparing to host the Centenary Games in 2030, this screening of Dangal offers the opportunity for a moment of connection between India, Scotland, women’s sporting achievement, and the shared Commonwealth legacy between Scotland and India,” says the press release.

There’s more true-life sport with Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, which tells how Milkha Singh (aka “The Flying Sikh”) became the first Indian athlete to win gold in the 400 meters race at the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. Other highlights include the Hindi black comedy Newton, a sharp political satire on democracy and institutional apathy; the vibrant feminist drama Hellaro, about a group of women who use dance to fight back against the patriarchal mandate of their village; and the star-crossed love story Mughal-e-Azam, a landmark epic from 1960 that’s been recently restored and is a must-see on the big screen.

The full list of screenings is on the Filmhouse website (check out the lineup here), and what’s even more exciting about this festival is that all tickets are free, so tickets are sure to be booked up fast. We're told a second edition of the festival is already planned for September 2027.