EIFF: 19 world premieres, 150 films | Arts News
EIFF: 19 world premieres, 150 films
The Edinburgh International Film Festival organisers have left it till after Cannes to announce their own programme for next month. It’s not all about the numbers, but for the record the 121 news films at the EIFF will come from 52 countries, including 19 world premieres and 76 UK premieres. Among the world premieres are Richard Ledes’ Fred, Nathan Silver’s Exit Elena and Benjamin Pascoe’s Leave It on the Track. Other highlights include 7 Days in Havana in which directing duties are shares by Benicio Del Toro, Pablo Trapero, Julio Medem, Elia Suleiman, Gaspar Noé, Juan Carlos Tabio and Laurent Cantet. Bobcat Goldthwait’s God Bless America features in the Directors’ Showcase. Rounding up the total number of films to 150 are oldies and goldies.
For the first time British films up the Michael Powell Award include documentaries. Among them are world premieres for Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland); Day of the Flowers (John Roberts); Flying Blind (Katarzyna Klimkiewicz); Future My Love (Maja Borg); Life Just Is (Alex Barrett); One Mile Away (Penny Woolcock) and Pusher (Luis Prieto). There is also a strong leaning towards films from the Far East, including new work from China, Japan and the Philippines.
“Our programme reflects the exceptionally vibrant state of current cinema,” says EIFF Artistic Director Chris Fujiwara. “Our audiences will be able to explore a wide range of outstanding films from around the world, including work by established masters and films from new and emerging talents. There are also some no less exciting discoveries to be made this year in our Retrospectives. Altogether it’s a rich and diverse programme that tells, I believe, a fascinating story about where cinema is today, what it can learn from the past, and where it is going in the future.”
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