Edinburgh Film Festival 2022: 15 Must-See Films

Of course, we recommend you make it opener Aftersun and closer After Yang, although tickets are currently like gold dust. Here are 15 other must-see titles from EIFF's programme

Article by Jamie Dunn | 09 Aug 2022
  • Goodbye, DonGlees!

Leonor Will Never Die
Dir. Martika Ramirez Escobar
Fiction and reality blur in this surreal comedy from the Philippines. The Leonor of the title is an ageing director famed for her action movies. Her retirement is interrupted, however, after a neighbour accidentally drops a TV on her noggin, hurtling her into one of her own films where she interacts with some of the macho characters she wrote. A love letter to the wild invention and exuberance of Filipino cinema. Filmhouse, 16 Aug, 8.35pm; Vue Omni, 18 Aug, 3.30pm


Leonor Will Never Die

Special Delivery
Dir. Park Dae-min
Love vehicular thrillers like Drive and The Driver but sick of them being boys' clubs where the female leads are stuck playing passengers? Special Delivery breaks the mould with a female petrol-head – Parasite’s Park So-dam – behind the wheel. By day, she works in a scrapyard; by night, she’s a slick getaway driver taking Seoul gangsters wherever they want to go in a hurry. We’re told to expect high-octane car chases and a pulsing electronic score. Vue Omni, 18 Aug, 9.35pm; 19 Aug, 4.20pm


Special Delivery

Nude Tuesday
Dir. Armağan Ballantyne
Jemaine Clement plays a sexual healing guru in this 'gibberish comedy' about a middle-aged couple trying to rekindle their moribund marriage – much self-discovery and full frontal nudity ensues. If the nudity hasn’t already piqued your interest, then the fact that dark comic genius Julia Davis (Nighty Night, Sally4Ever) provides the subtitles to the gibberish should. Everyman, 16 Aug, 8.40pm, 8.50pm

Juniper
Dir. Matthew J. Saville
Charlotte Rampling is said to be at her majestic best in New Zealand drama Juniper. In it, she plays a heavy-drinking grandmother who terrorises then eventually bonds with her estranged 17-year-old grandson, who’s charged with her care as punishment after being expelled from boarding school. Pass the G&T as well as the hankies! Everyman, 17 Aug, 6pm; Filmhouse, 20 Aug, 11am

Phantom Project
Dir. Roberto Doveris
This delightfully leftfield comedy from Chile follows a queer aspiring actor hipster who’s being haunted – and perhaps seduced – by his ex-flatmate's vintage cardigan. On the surface, this is a whimsical meta ghost story but Phantom Project also has plenty to say about the precarious lives of poor young creatives trying to hold their shit together in modern-day Santiago. Vue Omni, 14 Aug, 2.15pm; Cameo, 15 Aug, 9.20pm

Millie Lies Low
Dir. Michelle Savill
Be prepared to cringe hard with ​​Kiwi comedy Millie Lies Low. When anxious architecture graduate Millie has a panic attack before a flight to New York, forcing her to stay in her hometown of Wellington instead, she does the obvious thing. Go home and have a cup of tea? See a therapist? No, Millie instead fakes her trip to the 'Big Apple' using creative licence on her Instagram. Vue Omni, 15 Aug, 4.05pm; Filmhouse, 18 Aug, 1.45pm


Millie Lies Low

Goodbye, DonGlees!
Dir. Atsuko Ishizuka
We love the sound of coming-of-age Japanese animation Goodbye, DonGlees! It follows three teen pals – Roma, Toto and Drop – who spend their summer cooking up backyard adventures, but when they’re blamed for starting a nearby forest fire, they set off into the wilderness to try and clear their names. Basically, it’s giving us Stand By Me vibes, but, you know… anime. Vue Omni, 16 Aug, 2pm; 19 Aug, 9.15pm

Full Time
Dir. Eric Gravel
Anyone who’s ever had to deal with a hellish commute will appreciate Full Time. After getting an interview for a job that will enable her to be financially stable and spend more time with her kids, Julie’s dreams hang by a thread thanks to a Paris transit strike. A nail-biting thriller dressed as a social realist drama, we’ve seen Full Time described, quite delightfully, as Uncut Gems for single mums. Vue Omni, 17 Aug, 6.15pm; Filmhouse, 18 Aug, 4pm

LOLA
Dir. Andrew Legge
How neat is the premise for Andrew Legge's WWII-set debut feature, LOLA? It concerns two sisters who build a machine that can intercept TV and radio broadcasts from the future. They initially use their time-travelling tech to discover pop bangers that won't be penned for decades and gamble on upcoming sporting events, Back to the Future-style, before putting it to more heroic uses. Everyman, 15 Aug, 9pm; Vue Omni, 19 Aug, 4pm


Lola

The Plains
Dir. David Easteal
We’ve heard great things about David Easteal’s docu/fiction hybrid The Plains, which takes us along for the ride with Melbourne lawyer Andrew on his humdrum daily commute. Through conversations on the phone and with his occasional car-share passenger, we get a compelling picture of Andrew’s rich, complex and often hilarious life. File alongside other great car movies like Jafar Panahi’s Taxi and the ultimate mid-life crisis on wheels movie, Locke. Filmhouse, 13 Aug, 6.30pm

A Cat Called Dom
Will Anderson and Ainslie Henderson have long been stars of Scotland's short film scene, so it’s exciting to see them take their brand of bittersweet, meta filmmaking to feature length. The genesis for A Cat Called Dom couldn’t be more tragic. When Anderson’s mother is diagnosed with mouth cancer, he decides the only way to cope with the situation is to make a film. Blending fiction, documentary and an animated black cat who manifests on Anderson’s laptop, A Cat Called Dom is an ingenious experiment in filmmaking as therapy. Sat 13 Aug, 17:30, Cameo, 13 Aug, 5.30pm; Filmhouse, 19 Aug, 7pm

Flux Gourment
Peter Strickland is back with a typically kinky chamber piece. Inspired by Strickland’s own youthful dalliances as an avant-garde musician, Flux Gourmet centres on an eccentric music collective who create wild soundscapes using fruits and vegetables, but when they take up an artistic residency at the ‘Sonic Catering Institute’, tensions emerge. The result is a wildly surreal and satirical dark comedy about the struggles of creativity and, curiously, the melancholy of flatulence. Filmhouse, 14 Aug, 8.20pm; Vue Omni, 15 Aug, 1.30pm


Flux Gourmet

Please Baby Please
Please Baby Please has been described as ​​“West Side Story as directed by John Waters”, which is a brilliant description but doesn’t get close to adequately describing this wild, over-the-top, nutty extravaganza. It explores an absolute stew of ideas around sexuality and gender fluidity when a beatnik couple in 50s New York enters the orbit of a thug who looks like Marlon Brando’s hotter younger brother. What makes Please Baby Please such a knockout is that the form it takes is as queer as its content. Everyman, 18 Aug, 8pm; Filmhouse, 19 Aug, 4,45pm

Funny Pages 
Wanna feel old? Owen Kline, the onanistic youngest brother from The Squid and the Whale, is making movies now. And his debut feature, Funny Pages, is a scuzzy, funny delight. It concerns a 17-year-old who abandons his comfy suburban life to become a starving outsider comic book artist in New York. Fans of Robert Crumb and Daniel Clowes – as well as the Safdie Brothers, credited as executive producers – should flock to this one. Filmhouse, 14 Aug, 6pm; Filmhouse, 19 Aug, 11.50pm

Social Studies: Six Films by Kinuyo Tanaka
With roles in over 250 films, Kinuyo Tanaka was one of the most popular actors in Japan in her day. Less well known are the six features she directed between 1953 and 1962. Shot through with a vivid sense of freedom, these films put women’s stories at the forefront. EIFF shines a welcome light on these works that are just beginning to be discovered and taken seriously in the West. Filmhouse, various dates and times