Edinburgh Film Festival Launches 71st Programme Oliver Stone, Kevin Bacon To Attend

After a lacklustre 70th Anniversary 2016 programme today Edinburgh Film Festival launches its 71st programme in the hope those ‘ghosts’ have been exorcised. The 2017 Festival still looks a low-key affair with a mixture of Television, Netflix movies and independents.

This year’s Festival will showcase a total of 151 features from 46 countries including 17 World Premieres, 12 International Premieres, 9 European Premieres and 69 UK Premieres.

Previously announced Francis Lee’s England Is Mines will close the festival 11 days later on 2nd July.

Also previously announced Future Is History retrospective will attract guests including Richard E Grant, Peter Ferdinando, Steven Mackintosh, Kate Dickie, Tam Dean Burn, Bernard Hill, Matt Johnson, Gerard Johnson and Polly Maberly, all in attendance to and deliver a range of exclusive events and screenings.

He may annoy many people with those EE Adverts, Kevin Bacon will be in Edinburgh starring and promoting his wife’s directorial debut, Kyra Sedgwick‘s Story of a Girl.The pair will also attend a Q&A after the premiere of the movie, there will be a chance to see one of Bacon’s best movies The Woodsman too.Stanley Tucci will be ing the cinephiles in Scotland’s capital presenting his latest movie Final Portrait, which Geoffrey Rush stars as Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti.Oliver Stone will be in town to present a special 30th Anniversary screening of Wall Street.
The American Dreams strand which will show the very best in new American independent cinema by shining a spotlight on the boundless creativity originating from across the Atlantic. auteur director Terrence Malick’s music-focused Song to Song makes it’s UK premiere, featuring an all-star cast that includes Ryan Gosling, Michael Fassbender and Natalie Portman.Bryan Cranston leads as the idiosyncratic protagonist of Wakefield, James Franco‘s directed In Dubious Battle based on a John Steinbeck book starring Robert Duvall, Ed Harris, Vincent D’Onfrio, Selena Gomez. Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza are emotionally unstable nuns whose life is on the up when Dave Franco enters their lives in The Little Hours.

In the European Perspectives strand will feature a number of much anticipated continental films making their UK debuts.Russia delivers their first big blockbuster Superhero movie The Guardians and Russian sci-fi Attraction will be premiered at Edinburgh Film Festival.Keeping with European Cinema, Focus On Poland will deliver a diverse selection of movies from the country including International Premiere of Katarzyna Adamik’s thriller Amok. Additional notable films will include: Andrzej Wajda’s final feature Afterimage; psychological horror Animals; coming-of-age fantasy The Erlprince; Łukasz Ronduda’s A Heart of Love; the colourful Satan Said Dance; the extraordinary The Sun, The Sun Blinded Me; You Have No Idea How Much I Love You – the film that questions what love really means; and the gut-wrenching Volhynia.

One very disappointing lack of this year’s festival is gala screenings. Disney-Pixar returns with it’s annual Kids premiere with Cars 3. Other notable movies will be Bong Joon-Ho’s Cannes movie Okja making a rare big screen outing, however, the movie will be on Netflix by the time it arrives at the festival.

Mark Adams, EIFF Artistic Director, said: “We’re thrilled to finally be able to reveal all of the details of this year’s diverse programme. In the Festival’s 70th Anniversary Year, we’re proud to be showcasing some of the most exciting, accomplished material from around the world and are looking forward to hosting these talented filmmakers and artists when the Festival opens on 21st June.”