Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) has just announced its programme of screenings and events for its 2025 edition.
Following last year’s successful revitalised edition, the 78th Edinburgh International Film Festival will run from 14-20 August 2025, under the leadership of CEO and Festival Director Paul Ridd and festival producer Emma Boa, and will continue to accelerate the discovery of new film talent and engage with audiences, industry and local, national and international media.
This year’s programme explores the fragile ties that bind communities new and old, thrilling and revelatory journeys inward and outward and light shone in the darkest of places. It showcases new work from filmmakers from Scotland, UK, US, Ireland, Canada, Spain, Greece, Denmark, Croatia, France, Turkey, Australia, Brazil, Japan and beyond.
EIFF is pleased to be working with venue partners including the newly reopened Filmhouse alongside Cameo Cinema, Vue Omni, Monkey Barrel Comedy and a new pop-up screen at the National Gallery of Scotland’s Hawthornden Theatre placing the Festival at the heart of the city and August’s unparalleled Festival landscape.
Tollcross Central Hall will serve as the Festival Hub, open throughout the festival to industry and press delegates for industry panels and networking events, alongside informal meeting and working spaces. Tollcross Central Hall will also host the major In Conversation events open to the public.
This year’s programme continues to champion and nurture a new generation of UK and international talent, with a strong selection of first and second features, including filmmakers returning to the festival for a second year to present new work.
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Complementing the previously announced opening night film, Eva Victor’s eagerly awaited black comedy Sorry Baby, the festival presents a selection of compelling new and established voices in cinema including 18 World Premieres with an Out of Competition strand offering additional World and UK premieres.
The previously announced closing night film is the World Premiere of Paul Sng’s unmissable, kaleidoscopic Irvine Welsh documentary Reality Is Not Enough which sits within a programme strong with both Scottish and international talent.
The ultra-competitive Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence returns to present a panorama of contemporary international film and exciting new filmmakers. The competition comprises ten feature-length World Premieres, with the winning filmmaker awarded £50,000 to support their future projects. Decided by an audience vote, the winner will be announced at the end of the Festival and the award is generously supported by The Sean Connery Foundation. The winner of last year’s award Jack King’s The Ceremony has gone on to garner further acclaim and will be released in UK cinemas this August.
In Elliot Tuttle’s unflinching and emotionally explicit Blue Film a queer camboy agrees to spend a night with a mysterious stranger; Mas Bouzidi’s witty and beautifully shot Concessions celebrates the last day of an independent cinema; Jaclyn Bethany’s quietly powerful In Transit stars Jennifer Ealie as an an enigmatic artist who invites a young bartender to pose for her; Campbell X’s smart and soulful road movie Low Rider playfully subverts Black and queer film tropes; Grown up siblings tear each other apart in Jesse Noah Klein’s bold and darkly comic Best Boy; an Iranian funeral worker befriends a reclusive pop star in Abdolreza Kahani’s unpredictable drama Mortician; An ostracised neuroscientist is drawn out of hiding in Harry Lagoussis’s haunting and mysterious Novak, Helen Walsh’s sensual exploration of masculinity On The Sea focuses on a married mussel farmer who falls in love with a handsome newcomer; the death throes of a Swedish mining town are artfully documented in Alexander Rynéus and Per Bifrost’s Once You Shall Be One Of Those Who Lived Long Ago and Ondine Viñao’s visually stunning modern day fable Two Neighbors stars Anya Chalotra and Ralph Ineson.
Elsewhere, gripping and thoughtful stories of iconoclastic voices and unlikely connections make up this year’s Out of Competition strand, which showcases a selection of World, International and UK Premieres, where highlights include an AI version of Werner Herzog narrating a crime mystery in Piotr Winiewicz’s About A Hero and Eddie Marsan and Sam Claflin in Barnaby Roper’s brooding, stylish thriller All The Devils Are Here, while Paul Andrew Williams’s tautly constructed thriller of suburban discontent and brooding violence Dragonfly stars Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn.
You can also revisit James Bond on the big screen with a special strand of the six original Bond films starring Sean Connery. Sacred Bonds includes 4K restorations of Dr. No, From Russia With Love, From Russia With Love, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice and all introduced by a series of soon to be announced special guests.
EIFF’s In Conversation strand features a range of major filmmaking talent who will discuss their creative careers to date including director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void, One to One: John & Yoko) speaking with his brother, producer Andrew Macdonald (Trainspotting, Civil War, 28 Years Later), in a wide ranging conversation about filmmaking and their respective careers. Trailblazing filmmaker Nia DaCosta will discuss her acclaimed work which spans independent film, horror and major studio comic book adaptations including The Marvels, Candyman and upcoming film 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. From breakout horror thriller Kill List to EIFF Midnight Madness Opening Film Bulk, via hilarious black comedy Sightseers and many more, Filmmaker Ben Wheatley and long time producing partner Andy Starke will discuss their collaborations and their working dynamic. Award-winning writer and director Andrea Arnold is one of the UK’s most outstanding filmmakers and will discuss her searing debut feature Red Road, also screening at EIFF this year, which won the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut in 2006, along with her critically acclaimed work such as Fish Tank, American Honey, Cow and, most recently, Bird.
Bookending EIFF’s lovingly embraced Midnight Madness strand and unleashing the best in genre cinema from around the world is the World Premiere of Ben Wheatley’s visionary new film Bulk and the long awaited remake of The Toxic Avenger by Macon Blair, starring Peter Dinklage and Elijah Wood.
This year the festival will also present the World Premiere of six short films created throughthe inaugural NFTS Sean Connery Talent Lab. These short films are GOWK (dir. Ryan Pollock), Nora Can’t Score (dir. Josefa Celestin), LADY MACLEAN (dir. Catriona Macleod), TWENTY TWENTY (dir. Alex Salam), STATIC (dir. Miranda Stern) and CHECKOUT (dir. Mairead Hamilton).
EIFF is also pleased to partner with Scottish Documentary Institute to present the short documentary films created through the Bridging the Gap training programme. Inner forces and outside influences shape this collection of short films which offer surprising, intimate and poetic insights of contemporary Scotland.
This year’s industry programme now runs across the whole of the Festival with industry delegates experiencing the wealth of the film programme and access to all that is on show in the wider festivals month via new collaborations with a range of partners that focus on creating conversations and in-roads for creatives across different art forms. More details on the EIFF Industry programme will follow in the next few weeks.
This year’s 78th edition of the Festival continues in the revitalised Festival mission to showcase the very best talent in filmmaking in a format rooted in a local Scottish context whilst embracing the international diversity of creative expression. EIFF encourages audiences, film fans and industry professionals back to Edinburgh this Summer to continue the journey of discovery.
Paul Ridd, CEO and festival director of EIFF said “I am absolutely thrilled to launch this year’s beautiful programme of films, talks and events into the world. This programme represents a year of incredibly hard work from our team, headed up by myself and my brilliant collaborator Emma Boa, from our supportive Board, and from our partners across film and the arts. I am enormously grateful to all of them for their encouragement and support. For one week in August we celebrate film and its bright future in the heart of Edinburgh. But we hope the ripple effect for our films, for our filmmakers and for our audiences is felt year-round and all over the world. Bring it on.”
Isabel Davis, executive director at Screen Scotland added: “Paul and the team have surpassed themselves with this year’s exceptional, must-attend programme. As the major backers of EIFF, we’re overjoyed that the Filmhouse is back in action as a key part of the festival’s new footprint, alongside other great spaces. And we are excited by the expanding industry role, providing a springboard for acquisitions, a place for relationships to be forged between Scottish, UK and international filmmakers and professionals, and for emerging talent to encounter the world’s greatest films and filmmakers. Tollcross Central Hall as an industry hub is a gift of a space and set to become the focal point for incredible conversations and encounters across the festival. Bring it on!”
Full listings for the festival will go live on the EIFF website from 5pm today (Wednesday 2 July) with tickets going on sale midday on Thursday 3 July and via the EdFringe official app. Press and Industry accreditation for EIFF is now open and closes on 2 August.
EIFF 2025 is supported by Screen Scotland and the BFI Audience Projects Fund, awarding National Lottery funding, the Industry Programme is backed by EXPO funding from the Scottish Government through Creative Scotland, and EventScotland part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate.
