Edinburgh International Film Festival
announces 2026 programme
EIFF runs from 13-19 August 2026
- 38 new feature film presentations; 21 feature film World Premieres including 10 World Premieres competing for The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence
- The launch of the inaugural EIFF Outstanding Contribution to Cinema Award presented this year to Kenneth Branagh alongside In Conversation events with acclaimed filmmaking talent Bruce Dern, Christine Vachon and Ewan McGregor
- A special 30th anniversary celebration of Trainspotting at Leith Theatre with live cast and crew commentary and DJ sets from Irvine Welsh and Darren Emerson
- 7 special retrospective screenings including anniversary screenings of The Rock, Visitor Q and Hamlet, Hal Ashby’s Coming Home plus 4K anniversary restorations of Sexy Beast and Little Miss Sunshine
- 7 short film programmes including The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence competition and the presentation of new short form work by the second NFTS Sean Connery Talent Lab
- An Out of Competition strand showcasing some of the most exciting new global cinema including new films from Molly Manners, Nicolas Winding Refn, Gregg Araki and Hirokazu Kore-eda and the return of a strand of thrilling Midnight Madness films
- A 7-day celebration of world-class new cinema aims to spark conversations and welcome audiences, press and industry to engage with the best of Edinburgh’s other cultural Festivals
The 79th Edinburgh International Film Festival will run from 13-19 August 2026, under leadership from CEO and Festival Director Paul Ridd and Festival Producer Emma Boa, and will continue to accelerate the discovery of new film talent, engage with audiences, industry and local, national and international media and continue in its mission to be the home of independent cinema in the UK.
This year’s Festival has a programme showcasing diverse themes, ideas, perspectives and forms and bringing new work to Edinburgh from filmmakers from Scotland, Ireland, UK, US, Italy, Greece, The Netherlands, France, Denmark, Lithuania, Japan, Canada, Portugal and many more.
EIFF will work new venue partner Cineworld Fountainbridge alongside returning venue partners Filmhouse, Cameo Cinema, Monkey Barrel Comedy, as well as expanding across the city to collaborate with new venue partner Leith Theatre, placing EIFF at the heart of August’s unparalleled Festival landscape.
Central Hall will return to serve as the Festival Hub, open throughout the Festival for industry talks and networking events, alongside informal meeting and working spaces. Central Hall will also host the major In Conversation events at the Festival.
This year’s Festival 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 to present new work.
Following the previously announced Opening Night film, Louis Paxton’s delightful debut feature The Incomer, EIFF presents a compelling selection of new and established voices in cinema including 21 feature film World Premieres, alongside International and UK Premieres in the Out of Competition strand.
The previously announced Closing Night film is the World Premiere of Louise Lockwood’s sensitive and beautifully composed new documentary Bel which sits within a programme featuring Scottish and international talent.
This year’s EIFF plays host to 7 Special Retrospective Screenings headlined on Friday 14 August by a very special 30th anniversary celebration of Trainspotting at Leith Theatre featuring a live cast and crew commentary followed by a club night with DJs Irvine Welsh and Darren Emerson paying homage to the iconic soundtrack.
This year’s recipient of the inaugural EIFF Outstanding Contribution to Cinema Award will be acclaimed actor and director Kenneth Branagh who will also participate in a wide-ranging discussion of his illustrious career to date.
EIFF’s In Conversation strand also features a range of other major filmmaking talent who will discuss their creative careers to date including Bruce Dern, a true titan of cinema and independent film; Christine Vachon, one of the most prolific and exciting producers working in modern cinema; Ken Burns, one of most skilled and versatile documentary filmmakers working today, in conversation and presenting a special screening of Episode 2 of his new work on The American Revolution; and one of Scotland’s biggest global stars, Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning actor Ewan McGregor.
The ultra-competitive The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence returns to present a panorama of contemporary 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 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 will join previous winners Abdolreza Kahani’s Mortician (2025) and Jack King’s The Ceremony (2024), both of which have gone on to garner further acclaim and distribution success
This year’s Competition features are: Lindsay Ryan’s warm and poignant comedy debut Capsized starring Rhys Ifans about a houseboat holiday thrown into disarray; Thom Lunshof’s haunting and gripping feature debut First Zone in which a woman navigates a flooded and desolate post-apocalyptic landscape; Paul Wright’s immersive and vivid psychological portrait Mission in which George MacKay gives a standout performance; Simon Rynink’s hilarious 1999-set Out There in which Michael Sheen joins a gang of misfits to uncover a UFO conspiracy in a sleepy Welsh town; two young girls embark on a journey into the dark side of Hollywood in Tyler-Marie Evans’s edgy and stylish feature debut Pretty Babies; three sisters reunite at a rural Italy retreat in Frieda Luk’s unpredictable and beautifully shot Sacred Creatures; Kieron J. Walsh’s poignant and terrifically acted Skintown follows best friends Vinny and Jonty as they plan to escape small town life in 1990s Northern Ireland; newly surfaced 19th century pinhole camera footage reveals disturbing secrets in Joseph Archer’s provocative and unnerving Snapshot; a boisterous tearaway breaks his best friend out of hospice care for one final night of fun around Yorkshire in Ollie Gardner and Jake Harvey’s uplifting tragicomedy The State of Us; and Bart Simpson’s The Mad World of Harvey Kurtzman which sees contributors Terry Gilliam, the late Stan Lee and Robert Crumb offer a compelling insight into the rise of satirical publication Mad magazine.
This year’s Out of Competition strand showcases a selection of World, International and UK Premieres with standout new films spanning genres, forms and perspectives. With a line-up including UK Premieres of award-winning titles from Sundance, Berlinale and Cannes, this is a showcase of the most exciting global cinema from established auteurs to emerging voices.
Screening in the Out of Competition strand are: the World Premiere of Carlos Conceição’s deliciously noirish body horror Bodyhackers; the World Premiere of Marc Turtletaub’s beautiful adaptation of Jay Parini’s memoir Borges and Me in which a young student embarks on the trip of a lifetime across the Scottish Highlands with iconic poet Jorge Luis Borges; Finlay Pretsell’s Douglas Gordon by Douglas Gordon which presents an immersive portrait of Scottish visual artist Douglas Gordon and will screen with James Marcus Haney’s short film Dingo; and EIFF Award-winner Abdolreza Kahani (Mortician) returns to the Festival with the World Premiere of Empty Heaven, a lean and compelling thriller about a lonely Iranian dissident embroiled with a local criminal mob.
Molly Manners’ charming and spiky coming of age comedy drama Extra Geography; Goodbye Cruel World is Félix de Givry’s subtle and retro-styled story of compassion and acceptance. which will screen with Chloe Culpin’s poignant short The Pigeon; Nicolas Winding Refn’s ravishing, trippy new film Her Private Hell; Gregg Araki’s provocative I Want Your Sex starring Olivia Wilde, Daveed Diggs and Charli xcx which will screen with Olivia Cade’s short Lesbian Ditch Day; a spirited DJ searches for her friend in Guillaume Nicloux’s atmospheric thriller Mi Amor; three people break nondisclosure agreements in the International Premiere of Miriam Shor’s nail-biting documentary My NDA; the World Premiere of William Scoular’s spiky road movie Northbound starring Bruce Dern; Lance Hammer’s gripping moral thriller Queen At Sea which will screen alongside the World Premiere of Amaretti, a new short film by acclaimed actor Stacy Martin.
The World Premiere of These Violent Delights, Christopher Hampson and Oscar Sansom’s intoxicating retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet by Scottish Ballet; the World Premiere of Alexis Alexiou’s superbly shot thriller Sea of Glass; Hirokazu Kore-eda's richly emotional and thoughtful Sheep in the Box; transfixing music documentary The Best Summer from director Tamra Davis, which features candid interviews with rock legends The Foo Fighters, Bikini Kill, Pavement and Beastie Boys; set in 1810 Edinburgh, The Education of Jane Cumming is Sophie Heldman’s powerful story of prejudice and survival, presented in partnership with Reclaim the Frame; Maria Sødahl’s sharp thriller set in sun-drenched Gran Canaria The Last Resort will screen with Hansel Rodrigues’s powerful short Homing; in Jake Kuhn and Noah Stratton-Twine's superbly atmospheric British comedy-horror The Peril at Pincer Point, a feckless sound recordist is sent to a strange island by a tyrannical director. The film will screen with the European Premiere of Ismael Morales’s The End of Times.
This year’s Lynda Myles Celebrates screening will be the World Premiere of Theodore Schaefer’s surreal and reflexive The Arrow at Rest at Every Instant of its Flight which sees three seemingly disconnected stories unfolding in a whirlwind of black and white imagery across New York City. The film will be introduced by producer, screenwriter and former EIFF Director Lynda Myles.
Other Special Retrospective Screenings at the Festival include a 30th anniversary screening of Kenneth Branagh’s iconic adaptation of Hamlet; a 4K restoration screening for the 20th anniversary of the warm, witty and original Little Miss Sunshine; celebrating 25 years since the UK theatrical release, a special restoration screening of Sexy Beast, the electric debut from Jonathan Glazer (Birth, Under the Skin, The Zone of Interest) presented in partnership with The Skinny; a special screening of Hal Ashby’s complex and deeply humane portrait of the impacts of war, Coming Home, starring Bruce Dern, Jane Fonda and Jon Voight. The screening will be introduced by Bruce Dern.
EIFF also presents a 30th anniversary screening of Michael Bay's action-packed film The Rock introduced by Jason Connery and a 25th anniversary screening of Takeshi Miike’s darkly subversive masterpiece of extreme cinema Visitor Q. Alongside this, the Festival presents Martin Scorsese’s sprawling and endlessly fascinating 1995 documentary A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies produced with the BFI, screened in its entirety with a special introduction from producer Bob Last.
Bookending EIFF’s popular Midnight Madness strand presenting the best in genre cinema from around the world is the World Premiere of Chee Keong Cheung’s no-holds-barred POV thriller Bad Day at the Office and the UK Premiere of Daniel Goldhaber’s wildly inventive new take on Faces of Death.
Other ferocious new midnight movies include the World Premiere of the next explosive instalment of the cult series Rise of the Footsoldier: Retribution; when their child goes missing, a struggling marriage faces its toughest challenge yet in the UK Premiere of Caleb Phillips’s mind-bending thriller Imposters; tourists venture off the beaten track in James Nunn’s taut, tense and hugely enjoyable survival thriller Hungry; and in pursuit of viral success, two urban explorers face off against a building's shadowy past in Joby Stephens’s terrifying Abandoned which is presented in partnership with The Evolution of Horror podcast.
These titles will be complemented by World and European Premieres of short films including the European Premiere of Gregory JM Kasunich’s Meeting Your Maker; Austin Cauldwell’s IDYLL; Anabelle LeMieux’s No One Believes in Me; and Alexandra Ruggier’s Skinned.
The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence Competition presents the World Premieres of new exciting work from across the world including Scotland, Lithuania, Iran and France all competing for a £15,000 cash prize in honour of legendary film editor Thelma Schoonmaker.
This year’s films are: Mark Chapman’s A Woman of Good Abilities which follows a nightshift delivery driver whose life is thrown out of balance; Documentarian Devon Peterson’s bright celebration of renewal and Scottish craftspeople in Finding Home at the Pianodrome; Katie McGuinness’s BRUVVAS features a moving performance from Ben Whishaw; Emily Beecham, Daisy Bevan and Louisa Harland are on peak form in Sinda Agha’s dark comedy Grief Room; Jenny Carson’s hilarious satire of virtue-signalling KIND; Shahin Gorgani’s mesmerising Iranian film in which a young child is caught between their estranged parents, Saba; Rytis Dringelis and Simona Jurkuvėnaitė’s scintillating Lithuanian drama set on prom night Surplace; Zoé Chadeau’s delicate The Winkle’s Philosophy starring Lola Créton; Tomisin Adepeju’s magical realist exploration of change and grief Lift Me Up; and Anne-Sofie Lindgaard’s Small One which features stunning performances from Honor Swinton Byrne, Charlotte Spencer, and Herbert Nordrum.
The Festival will present the World Premiere of six enterprising and innovative shorts showcasing the work of talented emerging filmmakers in Scotland created through the second NFTS Sean Connery Talent Lab. The short films are Jagoda Tlok’s Bubbles; Fin Bain’s Shutterbug; Iqbal Mohammed’s My Little Blue Heart; Lara Delmage’s PANG; Declan Dineen’s Saint Anthony and Missy McNaught’s The Angel in the House.
Abuses of power and intense relationship dynamics are explored through surrealism and brutal realism in this year’s Out of Competition Shorts programme. Featuring incisive and radical filmmaking from across the globe, from Germany to Lebanon, via Sweden, Slovakia, and Scotland including a documentary about the future of tartan and the European Premiere of a new short directed by actor Robert Carlyle.
This year’s Animation Shorts is a collection of UK and World Premiere global animations exploring human connection in distinct, memorable ways, acting as a powerful reminder of how the medium can surprise and challenge in every genre.
From haunted objects to living landscapes, the Festival’s Experimental Shorts invite us into ways of sensing the unstable world we inhabit.
EIFF is also pleased to continue its partnership with Scottish Documentary Institute to present the short documentary films created through the Bridging the Gap training programme. This collection of short films offers surprising, intimate and poetic insights of contemporary Scotland.
EIFF is also delighted to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Screen Academy Scotland with a selection of World and International Premieres of new short films emerging from the academy.
Our Cinema ‘26 Shorts is an innovative new approach to film education in Scotland delivered by Transgressive North and Folk Film Gathering and modelled on Japan’s world-leading Children Meet Cinema project. The Festival presents a unique celebration of the freshest young filmmaking talent in Scotland with these World Premiere shorts.
This year the Festival is again delighted to see the return of 90 Minutes or Less Film Fest Podcast (Live), at Monkey Barrel Comedy, the acclaimed podcast where host Sam Clements discusses a short, sharp film, under 90 minutes in length with special guests. The Festival also welcomes back BBC Radio 1’s Ali Plumb for Ali Plumb’s Untitled Film Quiz Project, the perfect night out for film fans.
The Festival’s industry programme runs across the whole of the Festival with a range of new collaborations that focus on creating conversations and in-roads for creatives across different art forms. The centrepiece of this is the inaugural UK Film Conference, a one-day conference on 15 August that will be a state of the nation for independent film in the UK situated at the heart of EIFF’s Industry offering at the Festival Hub at Central Hall. The day will bring together filmmakers, producers, exhibitors, distributors and film professionals from all areas of the local and international film industry to engage with the future of independent film in the UK. Beginning with a lively and wide-ranging headline discussion with BFI CEO Ben Roberts in conversation with Picturehouse Creative Director Clare Binns. With talks, Q&As and events open to public audiences, the purpose of the day is to be ambitious, to think outside the box and to celebrate the bright future of the medium we all love and cherish.
More details on the EIFF Industry programme will follow in the next few weeks.
Paul Ridd, CEO and Festival Director of EIFF, said: “Heading into the third edition of our revamped, reimagined and reinvigorated Edinburgh International Film Festival feels like hitting a stride we have been working towards since the start of 2024. With stellar Competitions, fantastically varied and essential new films from Scotland, from the wider UK and from the rest of the world, and more World Premieres than we have ever screened before, this year’s line-up offers a panoramic vision of cinema at its most exciting, dynamic and full of potential. Edinburgh is quite simply the only place to be in August. Bring it on.”
Isabel Davis, Executive Director at Screen Scotland, said: “EIFF 2026’s programme is replete with Scottish talent, from the opening and closing titles to the 30th anniversary of Trainspotting. The Festival’s role as the home of independent cinema in the UK is coming into its own: strengthening its international premiere platform and bringing together filmmakers and the screen community for the urgent conversations affecting our industry.”