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Edinburgh International Film Festival 2021

View other Edinburgh International Film Festival Films by strand: Documentaries, Features, Fest In The City, Film Fest On The Forth, Gala Screenings, Restored Classics

Born In Damascus Born In Damascus
Born In Damascus and Stop Nineteen
Aberración Cromática (Country: Colombia, France; Year: 2020; Director: Andrés Baron)
Collage film observing a woman making a screen print of herself.
Black Box: Interruptions
Affairs Of The Art (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Joanna Quinn; Writer: Les Mills; Stars: Menna Trussler, Brendan Charleson, Joanna Quinn, Mali Ann Rees)
A family is obsessed with everything from drawing to taxidermy.
Full Review
Family Values
Allowed (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Zillah Bowes)
An animated lockdown walk through Cardiff during the first Covid-19 wave, re-examining our relationship with urban plant life in the context of biodiversity loss and climate crisis.
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
An Taigh Solais (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Alina Brust)
An elderly shepherd and her sheep get trapped in a mysterious lighthouse and they must find a way out before time runs out.
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
Are You Still Watching? (Country: Australia; Year: 2021; Director: Alex Cardy, Kitty Chrystal, Tali Polichtuk)
In the midst of Melbourne’s Covid-19 lockdown, Jamie finds reprieve from the monotony of isolation through their imagination, sensuality and some help from iconic onscreen queer characters.
Imaginings
The Shift The Shift
The Shift and Affairs Of The Art
Autofiction (Autoficcion) (Country: Spain, United States, New Zealand; Year: 2020; Director: Laida Lertxundi; Writer: Laida Lertxundi)
Borrowing its name from the title of a literary genre, the film recognises the indeterminacy of both fiction and of the being.
Black Box: Interconnections
BA (Country: Russia; Year: 2020; Director: Svetlana Flippova)
Sasha grew up in a city in Soviet Kazakhstan and takes refuge in the imaginary world of books and music.
Family Values
The Bayview (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Daniel Cook)
A glimpse into the world of a family who have turned the previously derelict hotel into a place of respite for international fishermen when they come to land.
Full Review
Bridging The Gap: Mobile
Born In Damascus (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Laura Wadha)
After ten years apart, a Scottish filmmaker tries to reconnect with her closest cousin after their paths were separated by war.
Full Review
Bridging The Gap: Mobile
Bound (Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Joe Carter)
Drama sees two young people navigating the ultimate walk of shame.
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
The Bayview The Bayview
The Bayview and ‎Le Rêve
C (Alleswasichberühre) (Country: Switzerland; Year: 2020; Director: Marion Täschler)
In a constant search for closeness, C experiences emotions in all their highs and lows.
Imaginings
Candy Can (Country: Romania; Year: 2020; Director: Anton Octavian)
The story of a child saved by imagination from a rotten, abusive reality.
Imaginings
The Dog With Wings (7) (Year: 2020; Director: Sanjana Chandrasekhar)
A family of 4 attempt to uncover sensitive issues about each other, through solving a cryptic crossword puzzle.
Family Values
Dreamscape (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Emer Gallagher)
Sophie finds herself in a dazzling sea of images, set adrift in her subconscious. Where is she going?
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
Evening Plans (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Nathaniel Brimmer-Beller)
The small story of a big night.
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
Tang Jër Tang Jër
Tang Jër and Lost Child Reel
Fart Car (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Fraser Scott; Writer: Fraser Scott; Stars: Michael Ahomka-Lindsay)
An exploration of grief, as a young man tells us the story of the eventful night of his first kiss with a boy.
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
The Fourfold (Country: Canada; Year: 2020; Director: Alisi Telengut; Writer: Alisi Telengut)
Based on the ancient animistic beliefs and shamanic rituals in Mongolia and Siberia, an exploration of the indigenous worldview and wisdom.
Family Values
Further Radical (Country: France; Year: 2020; Director: Stefano Canapa)
Experimental film using slices of black radish on unexposed film.
Black Box: Interruptions
Ghosts (Country: South Korea; Year: 2020; Director: Park Jee-youn)
In the boredom of life, they became ghosts. The crows are after them.
Imaginings
The Grove (Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Craig Brownie, Nathaniel Duff)
Zoe was found murdered four months ago. The case ran cold. Suspicions point to the original detective, now himself deceased. But could the real killer be hiding in plain sight?
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
Run With Her Run With Her
Run With Her and The Fourfold
The Hangman At Home (Country: France, Denmark, Canada; Year: 2021; Director: Michelle Kranot Uri Kranot)
What does an executioner think about when he comes home after a hard day's work?
Family Values
Have A Nice Dog (Country: Germany, Syria; Year: 2020; Director: Jalal Maghout; Writer: Jalal Maghout; Stars: Hoda El-Sharkawy, Lucas Englander, Karsten Matern, Hoda El-Sharkawy, Lucas Englander, Karsten Matern)
Trapped in Damascus, surrounded by war, a lonely man becomes increasingly lost in his fantasies of fleeing and the inner dialogues with his dog.
Imaginings
How A Sprig Of Fir Would Replace A Feather (Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Anna Kipervaser)
Employing devices of close examination and tactile visual engagement to natural history specimens, brings both illumination and regenerative energy to these exquisite artefacts.
Black Box: Interruptions
Jambo Cinema (Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Dawinder Bansal; Writer: Dawinder Bansal)
A short film about a video rental shop in 1980s Wolverhampton, bringing a lost world back to life.
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
Keith Water (Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Izzy Gibbs)
Stop-motion story about a small river.
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
The Hangman At Home The Hangman At Home
The Hangman At Home and The Last Days
Kkum (Country: US, South Korean; Year: 2020; Director: Kangmin Kim; Writer: Kangmin Kim; Stars: Kangmin Kim, Joung-Soon Park, Kangmin Kim, Joung-Soon Park)
Animated short.
Family Values
Kopierwerk (Year: 2019; Director: Stefanie Weberhofer)
The cinema is a machine. Kopierwerk testifies to that.
Black Box: Interruptions
The Last Days (Year: 2020; Director: Dipo Baruwa-Etti)
In a near-future world where you can discover your Death Day, an apolitical woman learns that she and many black people have been given incorrect dates and seeks justice before her time runs out - that same day.
Visions
‎Le Rêve (Country: Germany; Year: 2020; Director: Peter Conrad Beyer)
The raven dreams of nature, he dreams of a world of plants and insects. He travels, flies into nature. He is nature itself. Nature itself dreams into trance.
Black Box: Interconnections
Lost Child Reel (Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Rhys Morgan)
A process of filmic translation, exploring the layers of oral tradition bound into vernacular American folk music forms, set in motion through an ingenious overlapping of analogue and digital processes.
Black Box: Interruptions
Tri-Alogue #4 Tri-Alogue #4
Tri-Alogue #4 and West Country
Lussevaka (Country: UK, Sweden; Year: 2020; Director: Johanna Sutherland)
At a bustling Lucia dinner party, a young girl, ignored and patronised by the adult conversation around her, forms an unspoken bond with an equally excluded elderly lady across the table. Stirring supernatural forces, they find their own means of escaping the gathering.
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
A Month Of Single Frames (Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Lynne Sachs; Writer: Lynne Sachs)
A film made from footage shot by Barbara Hammer during a one-month artist residency, which she gave to Sachs and invited her to make a film with.
Black Box: Interconnections
Moving Out Through Stars (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Holly Summerson)
An animated journey through queerness, joy and transformation, inspired by the poetry and scrapbooks of Edwin Morgan - Scotland’s first National Poet.
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
My Favorite Software Is Being Here (Country: US; Year: 2021; Director: Alison Nguyen)
Animation centred on a woman's isolated existence.
Visions
Noonwraith Blues (Country: UK, US; Year: 2020; Director: Kamila Kuc)
Presence, memory and ancient folkloric sensibilities latent within the fabric of the landscape are evoked through gesture, ritual and physical interaction with the filmstrip.
Black Box: Interruptions
Souvenir Souvenir Souvenir Souvenir
Souvenir Souvenir and Ghosts
Octavia's Visions (Country: Germany; Year: 2021; Director: Zara Zandieh)
Animation inspired by the Parables of the African-American futurist author Octavia E Butler.
Visions
Of This Beguiling Membrane (Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Charlotte Pryce)
The story unfolds on the Eve of Midsummer: on the day when the threshold between worlds is porous, and an idle gesture can tempt fate.
Black Box: Interconnections
One For The Road (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Eileen Tracey)
Ceri has to pack up her whole deeply rooted life in the seaside town of Penporth to meet the evacuation date set by the government, as the coastal defences crumble under ever-rising sea levels.
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
Only Yesterday (Country: New Zealand; Year: 2020; Director: Sione Monū)
An imagined alternate world where the island and community of Tonga was unaffected by colonialism, shown through the eyes of two leiti’s living in Aotearoa.
Visions
Opal (Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Kirsty McLean)
A teenage boxer tries to fill her idolised and abusive father's space in the family after his sudden passing.
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
Prosopagnosia Prosopagnosia
Prosopagnosia and Soft Animals
Precious Hair & Beauty (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: John Ogunmuyiwa; Writer: John Ogunmuyiwa; Stars: Michael Akinsulire, Adjani Salmon, Mamad Heidari, Adé Dee Haastrup, Tomi Ogunjobi, Jessica Bay, Kemi Lofinmakin, Olu Adaeze, Kafayat Adegoke, Deenie Davies, Xanthi Ncube, Michael Akinsulire, Adjani Salmon, Mamad Heidari, Adé Dee Haastrup)
An ode to the mundanity of and the community found on the high street, told through the window of an African hair salon.
Visions
Prosopagnosia (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Steven Fraser)
Exploration of face-blindness.
Bridging The Gap: Mobile
Push This Button If You Begin To Panic (Country: UK, Switzerland; Year: 2020; Director: Gabriel Böhmer; Writer: Gabriel Böhmer)
Bartholomew Whisper went to the doctor today. There he met administrators keen on experimental surgery, and lonely MRI machines. At least the growing hole in his head was becoming quite beautiful.
Imaginings
Redbird And Other Birds (Country: Canada; Year: 2019; Director: Julieta María)
Essay film set around a small suburban aiport.
Black Box: Interconnections
Rough (Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Adam Patterson, Declan Lawn)
Post-conflict paramilitaries, in Northern Ireland, enforce brutal street justice “punishment” attacks. But when they pass a death sentence on a local dog, they bite off more than they can handle
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
Step Tnto The River Step Tnto The River
Step Tnto The River and A Month Of Single Frames
Run With Her (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Lia Campbell)
Documentary about a teenage endurance runner and her shifting relationships.
Bridging The Gap: Mobile
SEA 404 (Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu, Michael Pisaro)
How does postmodern engagement with technology mediate our bodily experience of, and interaction with, the natural world?
Black Box: Interruptions
Shagbands (Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Luna Carmoon; Writer: Luna Carmoon; Stars: Ruby Stokes, Frankie Box, Demi Butcher, Leila Katia McCalla, Alex Draper, Tommy Hunt, Juan O'Carroll, Frankie Wilson, Ruby Stokes, Frankie Box, Demi Butcher, Leila Katia McCalla, Alex Draper, Tommy Hunt, Juan O'Carroll)
In the summer heatwave of 2006, a gang of teenage girls in south London face strange sexual awakenings and a discovery of violence.
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
The Shift (Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Laura Carreira; Writer: Laura Carreira; Stars: Anna Russell-Martin)
An agency worker gets bad news while she's shopping.
Full Review
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
Signal 8 (Country: Hong Kong; Year: 2019; Director: Simon Liu)
They said a storm is calling this way but we’re still waiting. Lives carry on in Hong Kong as traces of civic upkeep morph into sites of remembrance.
Black Box: Interconnections
BA BA
BA and Stripes
Silvering (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Eilidh Nicoll)
A woman’s spiral into panic after discovering a grey hair.
Imaginings
Soft Animals (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Renee Zhan; Writer: Renee Zhan; Stars: Paul Panting, Joanna Ruiz)
Two ex-lovers bump into each other at a train station.
Imaginings
Soothe (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Rowan Abbott, Poppy Payne)
A young woman struggles to find a work-life balance. Presented with the world’s leading meditation app, can she finally get a break?
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
Souvenir Souvenir (Country: France; Year: 2020; Director: Bastien Dubois)
For ten years I pretended I wanted to get my grandfather to share his memories of the Algerian War. Today, I’m not sure I want to hear what he has to say, or whether I want to make this film at all.
Imaginings
Step Tnto The River (Country: China; Year: 2020; Director: Weijia Ma)
Animated fable about the consequences of China’s one-child policy.
Family Values
Of This Beguiling Membrane Of This Beguiling Membrane
Of This Beguiling Membrane and Keith Water
Stop Nineteen (Country: UK, Ireland; Year: 2020; Director: Danielle Swindells)
Consideration of the tourist industry that has sprung up around places associated with The Troubles.
Full Review
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
Stripes (Country: Germany; Year: 2019; Director: Ann Oren)
A playful, Dada inspired exploration of optics and the surface of the image.
Black Box: Interruptions
Tang Jër (Country: Senegal; Year: 2020; Director: Selly Raby Kane)
Fantastical short set in a mysterious restaurant.
Visions
Thorax (Year: 2019; Director: Siegfried A. Fruhauf)
Cinema is a trick of the light, and Fruhauf harnesses the restless curiosity of early cinematic innovation to evoke a perceptual journey into the macro depths of cosmic abstraction.
Black Box: Interruptions
Tri-Alogue #4 (Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Caryn Cline, Linda Fenstermaker, Reed O'Beirne; Stars: Emily Durand, Emily Durand)
Three filmmakers, one roll of film.
Black Box: Interconnections
Jambo Cinema Jambo Cinema
Jambo Cinema and Kkum
Verisimilitude (Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: David Proud; Writer: Justin Edgar; Stars: Laurie Davidson, Alice Lowe, Simon Lowe, Ruth Madeley, Esther Smith, Laurie Davidson, Alice Lowe, Simon Lowe, Ruth Madeley, Esther Smith)
An unemployed disabled actress watches all the disabled acting jobs go to able bodied actors. She is engaged as an advisor to a spoilt up and coming British film star, showing him how to be disabled for his latest role.
Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations
West Country (Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Rowan Ings)
A portrait of labour and land in the West Country, told with reflections from local 13-year-old Conor.
Bridging The Gap: Mobile
You Will Never Walk Alone (Country: UK, Poland; Year: 2021; Director: Jagoda Tiok)
The film’s director ventures into memories of her childhood in conservative, catholic Poland to reflect on the 2020 abortion ban and the powerful rebellion that came after.
EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition
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