Edinburgh International Film Festival unveils 2015 line-up

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The line-up for the 69^th Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) has been unveiled this morning by new artistic director Mark Adams.

This year’s EIFF (June 17-28) will comprise 164 features from 36 countries, including 24 world premieres, eight international premieres, 16 European premieres and 84 UK premieres.

Highlights including the UK premiere of Asif Kapadia’s documentary Amy, about the life of singer Amy Winehouse; the latest Disney-Pixar animation Inside Out; Arnold Schwarzenegger in zombie drama Maggie; comedy The D-Train, starring Jack Black and James Marsden; and a biopic of The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, Love & Mercy, in which John Cusack and Paul Dano play different aged versions of the musician.

Classic Screenings will include a rare outing for Noel Marshall’s Roar, a cult 1981 big cat movie.

Star power

This year’s EIFF will present a series of In-Person events, which will see film names interviewed on stage such as Ewan McGregor, who will attend with his new film Last Days In The Desert; Jane Seymour and Malcolm McDowell, both in Edinburgh for their starring roles in Bereave; and cult Hong-Kong director Johnnie To, with his accompanying feature Exiled.

EIFF honorary patron Seamus McGarvey will return with his cinematography ‘In Conversation’ series with two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).

A special In-Person talk will celebrate the 60^th birthday of British animator Barry Purves; while musician, writer and comedian Neil Innes will present A Half of Innes, a live In-conversation event with musical accompaniment.

Michael Powell Award

British films in competition for the Michael Powell Award - for Best British Feature Film and Best Performance in a British Feature Film - include 10 world premieres and three UK Premieres. Among the contenders are:

• The Legend Of Barney Thomson, Robert Carlyle (opening film)
• Iona, Scott Graham (closing film)
  
  
• 45 Years, Andrew Haigh
• Black Mountain Poets, Jamie Adams
• Blood Cells, Joseph Bull and Luke Seomore
• Brand New-U, Simon Pummell
• Hector, Jake Gavin
• The Incident, Jane Linfoot
• Norfolk, Martin Radich
• North v South, Steven Nesbit
• The Pyramid Texts, Ludwig and Paul Shammasian
• Swung, Colin Kennedy
• The Violators, Helen Walsh

International Feature Film Competition

The competitive international competition highlights filmmaking from around the world that EIFF programmers term “imaginative, innovative and deserving of wider recognition”. Titles include:

• 13 Minutes, Oliver Hirschbiegel
• 600 Miles, Gabriel Ripstein
• The Diary Of A Teenage Girl, Marielle Heller
• Dope, Rick Famuyiwa
• I Stay With You, Artemio Narro
• Len And Company, Tim Godsall
• Manson Family Vacation, J Davis
• Night Shift, Niki Karimi
• Out Of Nature, Ole Giæver and Marte Vold
• Paradise In Service, Doze Niu Chen-Zer
• The Stanford Prison Experiment, Kyle Patrick Alvarez
• You’re Ugly Too, Mark Noonan.

Best Documentary Feature Film

For the first time, EIFF will include a ‘Doc of the Day’, with each featured film supported by an associated event. Titles in the Documentary competition include:

• Above And Below, Nicolas Steiner
• All Of Me, Arturo Gonzalez Villasenor
• Amy, Asif Kapadia
• Chuck Norris vs Communism, Ilinca Calugareanu
• The Closer We Get, Karen Guthrie
• The First Film, David Nicholas Wilkinson
• Nearby Sky, Nujoom Alghanem
• The Newsroom – Off The Record, Mikala Krogh
• Prophet’s Prey, Amy Berg
• Stand By For Tape Back-Up, Ross Sutherland
• That Sugar Film, Damon Gameau
• The Wolfpack, Crystal Moselle

Other documentary titles playing during EIFF include

• Big Gold Dream: Scottish Post-Punk And Infiltrating The Mainstream, Grant McPhee
• Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story Of The National Lampoon, Douglas Tirola
• Future Shock! The Story Of 2000AD, Paul Goodwin
• The Iron Ministry, JP Sniadecki
• Misery Loves Comedy, Kevin Pollack
• Precinct Seven Five, Tiller Russell
• Remake, Remix, Rip-Off, Cem Kaya
• Sherry & The Mystery Of Palo Cortado, José Luis López-Linares
• Sunshine Superman, Marah Strauch
• When Elephants Fight, Michael Ramsdell.

Audience Award nominees

EIFF will host the world premiere of the English-language version of Under Milk Wood from Kevin Allen, a film adaptation of Dylan Thomas’ classic starring Rhys Ifans and Charlotte Church and a contender for EIFF’s Audience Award.

Full Audience Award nominees:

• Amy, Asif Kapadia
• Big Gold Dream…, Grant McPhee
• Cop Car, John Watts
• Desert Dancer, Richard Raymond
• Learning To Drive, Isabel Coixet
• Scottish Mussel, Talulah Riley
• The Diary Of A Teenage Girl, Marielle Heller
• The Messenger, David Blair
• The Overnight, Patrick Brice
• The Stanford Prison Experiment, Kyle Patrick Alvarez
• Under Milk Wood, Kevin Allen
• You’re Ugly Too, Mark Noonan

Strands

EIFF’s American Dreams strand, focussed on new US indie cinema, includes Gina Prince-Bythewood’s musical melodrama Beyond The Lights starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Minnie Driver and Danny Glover; and the UK premiere of Franny starring Dakota Fanning, Theo James and Richard Gere as a billionaire philanthropist.

European Premieres include Welcome To Me starring Kristen Wiig as a woman with borderline personality disorder; and Fresno, Jamie Babbit’s dark comedy about a sex addict. Other UK premieres include Alex Holdridge and Linnea Saasen’s comedy-romance Meet Me In Montenegro; road trip drama The Road Within; and Leslye Headland’s comedy Sleeping With Other People.

Directors’ Showcase will feature a selection of new works from established directors include David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn, with Al Pacino and Holly Hunter; Amy Berg’s crime story Every Secret Thing; Peter Bogdanovich’s sex comedy She’s Funny That Way; Masaharu Take’s female boxer drama 100 Yen Love; and Nobuhiro Yamashita’s offbeat romantic comedy La La La At Rock Bottom.

The chiller Night Moves strand will include Bruce McDonald’s tale of evil trick-or-treaters, Hellions; Corin Hardy’s debut The Hallow; Hungarian director Károly Ujj Meszáros’ fantasy film Liza, The Fox-Fairy; and the world premiere of Justin Trefgarne’s Narcopolis starring Elliot Cowan as a troubled cop. 

The New Perspectives strand will include the international premieres of Index Zero by Italian filmmaker Lorenzo Sportiello, about a couple struggling to stay together in a futuristic Europe, and Emily Ting’s It’s Already Tomorrow In Hong Kong, a Before Sunset-style romance set on the streets of Hong Kong.

UK Premieres include romance Sand Dollars by Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas; Melbourne, a domestic drama set within a Tehran apartment by Nima Javidi; and boxing drama Koza from Ivan Ostrochovský.

Mexico

A Focus On Mexico, in partnership with the Year of Mexico in the UK, will comrpise 13 feature films including the European premiere of Gabriela Dominguez Ruvalcaba’s documentary The Dance Of The Memory; Ernesto Contreras’ The Obscure Spring; and The Beginning Of Time by Bernardo Arellano which looks at ageing and survival during economic and social unrest in Mexico.

A selection of Classic Mexican films will also screen as part of the Focus, including Roberto Gavaldón’s supernatural drama Macario, the first Mexican film to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film; and Carlos Enrique Taboada’s Poison For The Fairies, a gothic tale of witchcraft, told from a child’s point of view.  

A TV strand will include a sneak-peek at the second season of comedy series Doll & Em, following real-life friends Emily Mortimer and Dolly Wells; and artist Jake Chapman’s The Marriage Of Reason & Squalor starring Rhys Ifans.

Special events taking place during the festival include a screening of documentary 6 Desires: Dh Lawrence And Sardinia, followed by a Q&A with director Mark Cousins; and a 30^th anniversary screening of Back To The Future with live accompaniment from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.