The Edin­burgh Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val returns fol­low­ing two vir­tu­al editions

Found­ed in 1947 by John Gri­er­son, the Edin­burgh Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val is the world’s old­est con­tin­u­al­ly run­ning film fes­ti­val. With its annu­al fort­night of films hav­ing helped to estab­lish great tal­ents like Ing­mar Bergman, and wel­com­ing A‑list stars like Jen­nifer Lawrence in the film ​‘Winter’s Bone’ and Cate Blanchett who was in the 2019 doc­u­men­tary ​‘This Changes Every­thing, the fes­ti­val returns for its 75^th anniver­sary year, includ­ing 125 fea­tures, doc­u­men­taries, ani­ma­tions, clas­sics, exper­i­men­tal films and shorts, in what looks to be an excit­ing line-up.

After a two-year stint of pre­sent­ing the fes­ti­val as a dig­i­tal event due to pan­dem­ic restric­tions, the fes­ti­val final­ly returns to an in-per­son for­mat, with a pro­gramme brought togeth­er by new cre­ative direc­tor Kristy Math­e­son, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked as Direc­tor of Film at Australia’s pres­ti­gious nation­al muse­um of screen cul­ture, ACMI.

The theme of this year’s fes­ti­val is set to acknowl­edge the dif­fer­ent types of fem­i­nism in soci­ety, specif­i­cal­ly cel­e­brat­ing the 50^th anniver­sary of the Women’s Event held at the fes­ti­val in 1972. This 2022 edi­tion also fea­tures two fem­i­nism-focused ret­ro­spec­tives: ​‘Refram­ing the Gaze: Exper­i­ments in Women’s film­mak­ing, 1972 to now’, curat­ed by Kim Knowles as a response to the 50^th anniver­sary of the Women’s Event; and six films by the under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed Japan­ese mid­cen­tu­ry film­mak­er, Kin­uyo Tana­ka, all being pre­sent­ed in new, 4k restorations.

This year’s fes­ti­val also sees films being shown across five dif­fer­ent strands: The con­ver­sa­tion, The Cham­ber; Heart­break­ers; Night Moves; and Post­cards From the Edge. Each strand will include a head­line film that will address its main theme. Ten of the fea­tures being shown at the fes­ti­val will also be in com­pe­ti­tion for the new­ly revived Pow­ell and Press­burg­er Award for Best Fea­ture Film. The fes­ti­val has select­ed Kogonada’s After Yang, which won plau­dits at the Cannes Film Fes­tivla ear­li­er this year, for its Clos­ing Gala on August 20.

Along­side the main pub­lic pro­gramme there are also many EIFF ini­tia­tives includ­ed in the 75^th edi­tion. The Tal­ent Lab Con­nects and the EIFF Crit­i­cal Writ­ing Com­mis­sion are among the things the fes­ti­val has to offer. So, with the festival’s long-await­ed return in its full, phys­i­cal form, we can only hope that this will be the (re)start of some­thing beautiful.

The 75^th Edin­burgh Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val runs between 12 and 20 August. For more info vis­it edfilm​fest​.org​.uk