EIFF announces full line-up

Marion Cotillard in Annette, a musical directed by Leos Carax Photo: Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival

Edinburgh International Film Festival has announced the line-up for its 74th edition after a hiatus last year due to the pandemic that meant it was unable to host a physical event. It includes 31 features and 73 shorts.

Among the highlights of the event, that will run from August 18 to 25, are Leos Carax's musical Annette, starring Marion Cotillard, which premiered in Cannes earlier this month, French director Quentin Dupieux's creature feature Mandibles and a special preview screening of stage show adaptation Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, which features Richard E Grant and Sharon Horgan alongside newcomer Max Harwood. There's also the world premieres of Hebridean drama The Road Dance, set on the brink of the First World War and documentary The Prince Of Muck, charting a farmer's fight to preserve his island home for the next generation.

Also joining the line-up is Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin, about a man who allows himself to be commodified, and the UK premiere of Haider Rashid’s Europa, about a young Iraqi refugee.

Documentaries include festival favourite Radiograph Of A Family and Walk With Angels, which considers South Africa's legacy of Apartheid and child trafficking.

The Man Who Sold His Skin

Nick Varley, lead guest programmer, said: “Despite the obvious challenges of presenting a festival during a pandemic the programming team is delighted to share this smaller but very strong line up with audiences. This year we have worked hard to ensure a diverse range of voices amongst the UK, European and International premieres, including achieving gender parity in our main selection. It’s been a joy working with such a fantastic team of programmers and we hope cinemagoers enjoy the films as much as we enjoyed selecting them.”

As previously announced, the festival will open with Nicolas Cage-starrer Pig and close with Billy Crystal's Here Today.

Retrospective screenings include Joseph Losey's The Servant - which will be released by Studiocanal on restored blu-ray in September and Federico Fellini's classic La Strada.

The short film programme will be divided into seven strands by theme, including fiction, animation and documentary. All short films will be available to watch digitally on Filmhouse at Home.

There will also be a series of Reel Talks panel discussions, The Power of Connection focuses on our fragile relationship with nature, inspired by the documentary Fathom and featuring one of the film’s subject, Dr Ellen Garland, while The Whole Picture draws on the themes highlighted in Rebel Dykes, a documentary about the relatively unknown London lesbian scene in the 80s and includes the film’s director, Harri Shanahan. Jennifer Ngo, a journalist and Human Rights Press Award recipient joins a panel discussing issues raised in her documentary Faceless which focuses on the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Filmmakers Judy Kibinge, Wanjeri Gakuru and Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo form the panel Daughters of East Africa to discuss how their filmmaking offers radically different images of themselves and their coming of age experiences. This panel discussion and accompanying shorts programme are part of Film Feels Hopeful, a UK-wide cinema season, supported by the BFI Film Audience Network using funds from the National Lottery.

Tickets go on sale at 12noon today for Filmhouse Members, and then on general sale at noon tomorrow.