Edinburgh International Film Festival 2017

This programme is split into showcases as indicated below:

  • (Be)longing
  • An Image Is A Territory
  • Bridging The Gap - Rebellion
  • Film Is Memory
  • From Scotland
  • The Young And The Wild
  • UK - Spectrum

View other Edinburgh International Film Festival Films by strand: American Dreams, Animation, Best Of British, Black Box, Documentaries, European Perspectives, Fantastic Planets: The Futuristic Art of René Laloux, Fest in the City, Focus On Poland, Galas, Night Moves, The Future Is History - Brave New World: New Directions in science-fiction cinema 1980-85, The Future Is History - Great Britain, Unlocking The Archives, World Perspectives

Spindrift Spindrift
Spindrift and A Love Story
1000 Smiles Per Hour (Country: UK, Germany; Year: 2017; Director: Fabian Altenried; Writer: Anne-Kathrin Heier; Stars: Julie Trappett, Alexander Wissel, E)
Drifting across the outer edges of a concrete landscape, a twilight meeting engenders a precious moment of connection for a melancholy performer, amid the coldly apathetic city limits.
Film Is Memory
Amérika: Bay Of Arrows (Amérika: Bahía de las flechas) (Country: Dominican Republic; Year: 2016; Director: Ana Vaz)
Vaz interrogates the contemporary reflections of colonialism.
An Image Is A Territory
The Colour Of His Hair (Country: UK; Year: 2017; Director: Sam Ashby; Stars: Sean Hart, Josh O'Connor, John Alcock, Matt Cook, Stef Dickers, Polly North)
A meditation upon queer identity and defiance, examined through a patchwork of re-appropriated archive materials.
Film Is Memory
Creeling (Country: UK; Year: 2016; Director: Sam Firth)
Teenager Lily lives in a remote highland village and has known Dougie, a young lobster fisherman, most of her life. A change in their relationship becomes apparent when he agrees to take her out fishing for the day.
From Scotland
Fishwitch (Country: UK; Year: 2016; Director: Adrienne Dowling; Writer: Jenna Jovi, Jenna Jovi, Adrienne Dowling, Hélène Sifre; Stars: Sam Apley, Natalia Tena), Official Site
Tootega is a witch who ekes out an isolated existence on an iceberg adrift in the ocean. It's a miserable lot, and in Tootega's case, misery hates company.
(Be)longing
Fish Story (Country: UK; Year: 2017; Director: Charlie Lyne; Writer: Charlie Lyne; Stars: Caspar Salmon)
Behind a fishy tale lies this search for the truth.
The Young And The Wild
Hold (Country: UK; Year: 2017; Director: Phoebe Cottam)
How do you love in isolation? And live in absence? A woman and her daughter strive to answer these questions after a loved one is suddenly removed from their lives.
Bridging The Gap - Rebellion
Inhale (Country: uk; Year: 2017; Director: Sean Mullan)
Through horses, a man feels an irrepressible duty to move in harmony with his pain.
Bridging The Gap - Rebellion
A Love Story (Country: UK; Year: 2016; Director: Anushka Naanayakkara)
Stopframe animation.
(Be)longing
Marrku And Me (Country: Finland; Year: 2016; Director: Lauri Danska)
The filmmaker returns to Finland to try to rebuild his relationship with his brother, who has schizophrenia.
(Be)longing
Meltemi (Country: UK, Greece; Year: 2016; Director: Zeta Spyraki)
A story about love, romance, and quiet rebellion.
(Be)longing
Nothing To Declare (Country: UK; Year: 2017; Director: Will Adams; Writer: Frank Quitely; Stars: Vincent Deighan)
An animated horror where the end of the world could start next door.
From Scotland
Only My Voice (Country: UK; Year: 2017; Director: Myriam Rey)
In an ode to freedom, migrant women share their ambitions and dreams of a new life.
Bridging The Gap - Rebellion
Plastic Man (Country: UK; Year: 2017; Director: Yulia Kovanova)
Breaking from daily reality, a man transforms into Plastic Man - armed with chemicals, ready to set landscape on fire. Is he the destroyer of Nature, or the voice of its resilience?
Bridging The Gap - Rebellion
Real Gods Require Blood (Country: UK; Year: 2017; Director: Moin Hussain; Writer: Tom Benn; Stars: Gillian Waugh, Lyndsay Fielding, Sharon Spink, Gary Overton, Mark Lavery, Kirsty Doyle, Anna Berentzen, Lee Gresty, Avidavit Williams, Richard Owusu, Alkali Reid, Ivy Mattingly, Kamari May)
A babysitter looks after children who claim they are feeding a nightly visitor from hell.
UK - Spectrum
Registers (Country: Sweden; Year: 2017; Director: Tris Vonna-Michell)
Images as a transcription of a journey, with Japan seen through the lens of a malfunctioning camera.
Film Is Memory
The Sailor (Country: Netherlands, Italy; Year: 2017; Director: Giovanni Giaretta)
A sailor dreams of a homeland he has never had.
An Image Is A Territory
The Sea Is History (Country: UK, France; Year: 2016; Director: Louis Henderson)
A materialist and animist critique of the monumentalisation of European colonial history and its ripples into the present.
An Image Is A Territory
Spectator (Country: Canada; Year: 2017; Director: Mike Hoolboom)
An acutely personal reflection upon the fragility of connection, engaging the camera in a reflexive attempt to capture a transient moment, and the elusive sensibility of an individual.
Film Is Memory
Spindrift (Year: 2016; Director: Selina Wagner; Writer: Selina Wagner), Trailer
A young girl living by the shore faces choices after encountering an eagle and someone new.
From Scotland
The Stability Of The System (Country: UK; Year: 2016; Director: Sasha Litvintsevam, Isabel Mallet)
An audiovisual trip takes us through the volcanic landscape of Lanzarote.
An Image Is A Territory
Study Movement 1, 2, 3 (Etude mouvement 1, 2, 3) (Country: Switzerland; Year: 2016; Director: Maya Corboud)
A choreographed conversation between image and movement.
Film Is Memory
Teeth (Country: UK; Year: 2017; Director: Thomas Hogben)
Every crooked lateral incisor or overzealous premolar tells a story.
Bridging The Gap - Rebellion
Towards The Sun (Hacia El Sol) (Country: US, UK; Year: 2016; Director: Monica Santis)
Under the looming threat of deportation, a 12-year-old girl confronts her scarring past through her artwork at an immigrant youth shelter in Texas.
(Be)longing
Water Steps (Los Pasos Del Agua) (Country: Colombia; Year: 2016; Director: César Augusto Acevedo; Writer: César Augusto Acevedo; Stars: Norberto Isajar, Isaí Carabalí, Dilver)
Two humble fishermen who live in a forgotten hamlet near to the Cauca river, discovered that a dead body had been tangled in their cast net. Failing to give notice to the authorities, they decided that it would be more humane to bury him, so they start dragging the dead body towards the jungle.
An Image Is A Territory
We Are Here (Country: UK; Year: 2017; Director: Ciaran Pasi)
Two friends reflect on their twenty-year friendship after an accident leaves one of them with a life-changing brain injury.
Bridging The Gap - Rebellion
News

59th New York Film Festival early bird highlights Futura, Jane By Charlotte, James Baldwin: From Another Place and The Velvet Underground

More news and features

Playing Now

Eye For Film continues to support festivals both locally and across the world. At the moment, we're covering:

Abertoir

DOC NYC
New York's celebration of factual film

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
One of the largest film gatherings in northern Europe

French Film Festival
The UK's longest running celebration of Francophone cinema

London Korean Film Festival

In the Archive


Archive of festival coverage.

Daily diary and reviews from 2005-2018.

Coverage of the lynchpin German festival.