Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) 2025 draws to a close
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025 draws to a close and continues to scale up, building creative in-roads with filmmakers and industry.
Article Source: Edinburgh International Film Festival
Last Updated: 25 August 2025 15:08
Monday 25 August, Edinburgh: Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) 2025 draws to a close following a seven-day programme of sold-out premieres, illuminating talks, retrospectives and well-received industry events which continues to build on last year’s successful Festival reboot.
The Festival ran from 14 - 20 August with 43 new feature films, 18 of which were World Premieres including 10 World Premieres competing for The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, this year won by Abdolreza Kahani’s Mortican, and 6 short film programmes including The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence competition, this year won by Joanna Vymeris’s Mother Goose. The Festival presented special retrospectives including Sacred Bonds, the 6 original James Bond films starring Sean Connery, introduced by members of the Connery family and special guests, and Budd Boetticher’s The Ranown Cycle presented in partnership with Edinburgh Film Guild, alongside 6 special retrospective screenings with introductions from special guests including Andrea Arnold, Kevin Macdonald, Nia DaCosta and David Hayman. In Conversation events with major film talent took place, with legendary film editor Thelma Schoonmaker discussing Michael Powell, Ken Loach, Paul Laverty and Rebecca O’Brien, Jeremy Thomas and Mark Cousins, Eva Victor and Adele Romanski, Nia DaCosta, Ben Wheatley and Andy Starke, Andrea Arnold, and Kevin Macdonald and Andrew Macdonald, in partnership with BAFTA Scotland. Hosts included Director of BFI Filmmaking Fund Mia Bays, Variety Film Critic Guy Lodge, Director of Edinburgh TV Festival Rowan Woods, Edinburgh Comedy Award Winning Comedian, Actor & Writer Rose Matafeo, 90 Minutes or Less Podcaster Sam Clements and We Are Parable Co-Founder and Creative Director Anthony Andrews.
The Festival kicked off on 14 August with the UK Premiere of Eva Victor’s acclaimed breakout hit Sorry, Baby and presented a selection of compelling new and established voices in cinema including 39 World Premieres and 48 UK Premieres across features and shorts. The Festival platformed new talent in Scotland with World Premieres of new shortform work from the inaugural NFTS Sean Connery Talent Lab and new Bridging the Gap documentary shorts in partnership with the Scottish Documentary Institute. Closing the Festival was the World Premiere of Paul Sng’s brilliantly inventive Irvine Welsh documentary Reality Is Not Enough, rounding off a programme with a strong presence for Scotland-based filmmakers and Scottish talent.
The Festival programme showcased new work from filmmakers from 36 countries including Scotland, UK, US, Ireland, Canada, Spain, Greece, Denmark, Croatia, France, Turkey, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Iran, Argentina, South Africa and beyond.
EIFF also continued to thrill audiences with its Midnight Madness strand beginning with the World Premiere of Ben Wheatley’s visionary Bulk and ending with Macon Blair’s new take on The Toxic Avenger.
The Festival worked with venue partners including the newly reopened Filmhouse alongside Cameo Cinema, Vue Omni, Monkey Barrel Comedy and a new pop-up cinema at the National Galleries of Scotland’s Hawthornden Theatre in partnership with Assembly Festival, once again placing EIFF at the heart of the Fringe and August’s unparalleled Festival landscape.
Tollcross Central Hall served as the Festival Hub, open throughout the Festival to industry and press delegates for industry panels and networking events, alongside informal meeting and working spaces.
With 194 screenings and 34 Industry and panel events, the Festival saw a total in person admissions at public events of over 16,500. All of which added up to the seven-day celebration of world-class new cinema championing a new generation of UK and international talent and seeing audiences, press and industry engage with the best of Edinburgh’s other arts and cultural Festivals.
The Industry Programme ran across the whole of the Festival and was very well received by attending guests with praise for EIFF championing both the spirit of independent cinema globally and locally and cross-arts conversations. Press and industry delegates experienced a wealth of programming including talks and panels discussing disability inclusion and access within film projects with CODE, OSKA Bright and BFI; a case study on Development to Distribution of The Outrun with BBC Film, StudioCanal, Brock Media,Protagonist and Edinburgh International Book Festival; Crafting Fear Through Games and Film with Screen Burn Interactive and Nia DaCosta; an overview of the animation sector in Scotland with Animation Scotland and Animated Women UK; a Screenwriting in Scotland discussion event in association with Writers Guild of Great Britain with Andrea Gibb, Paul Laverty, Paul Sng and Kelly Macdonald; a panel on How Female Creators Are Using TikTok to Break Into the Exclusive World of Film.
A Scottish/Irish Co-Production Opportunities event was hosted with Enterprise Ireland, Filming in Limerick and Screen Scotland, and Screen Scotland delivered an informative session on the new Talent Builder development project. Other Networking Brunches and Networking Drinks were delivered in partnership with WFTV, Production Guild of Great Britain, Screen Fringe, BBC Film, Screen Academy Scotland, Animation Scotland, Animated Women UK and Writers Guild of Great Britain.
As part of a new partnership with production company Unified led by BAFTA winning producer Amy Jackson (The Nest, Aftersun) and BAFTA winning producer Lauren Dark (The Father, Enys Men), the Festival hosted industry talks from Interim Head of Creative at Film4 Farhana Bhula; Oscar-nominated producer David Hinojosa (Past Lives, The Brutalist, EIFF 2025 title After This Death); Oscar-winning producer Adele Romanski (Moonlight, Aftersun); Director of BBC Film Eva Yates; A24’s Rose Garnett, former Director of BBC Film and Film4; Oscar-nominated producer Finola Dwyer (An Education, Brooklyn), BFI Director of Video Games and Certification Anna Mansi and Executive Director of Screen Scotland Isabel Davis.
Every screening and event at the Festival was introduced by a member of the EIFF team, and BSL interpretation was offered at 33 screenings that were presented with HOH Descriptive Subtitles. Audio Description was provided where possible and live captioning was provided at In Conversation events and panels.
The Festival welcomed over 300 filmmakers, producers and distributors to present their films, over 250 industry delegates including buyers, sales agents, commissioners and festival programmers including Eugene Hernandez, Head of Sundance Film Festival & Public Programming, and Jacqueline Lyanga, Co-Director of Film Programming at Berlinale, and over 170 press delegates.
Filmmakers and actors attending the Festival included Thelma Schoonmaker, Ken Loach, Renée Zellweger, Andrea Arnold, Jeremy Thomas, Kevin Macdonald, Andrew Macdonald, Nia DaCosta, David Hayman, Kate Dickie, Paul Laverty, Rebecca O’Brien, Kelly Macdonald, Eva Victor, Ben Wheatley, Eddie Marsan, Burn Gorman, Rose Matafeo, Jane Horrocks, Golda Roshuevel, Paul Andrew Williams, Brenda Blethyn, John McPhail, Andrew Kötting, Simon Rumley, Stacy Martin, Sam Riley, Alexandra Maria Lara, Noah Taylor, Gerard Johnson, Polly Maberly, Julie Pacino, Nadia Fall, Reed Birney, Constantine Costi, Barry Ward, Lorne MacFadyen, Steve Oram, Steven Saltzman, Douglas Mackinnon, Abdolreza Kahani, Gola and many more.
EIFF Director, Paul Ridd has said: “We are extremely proud of all the exceptional films we launched, as well as all the filmmakers, cinematic legends and audiences we welcomed to Edinburgh this past week. Our competitions continue to thrive, with buzzy titles provoking, entertaining and moving audiences, and our wider programme of features, shorts, events and talks signal our place in a global film culture that is alive and exciting. Putting it all together has been the collaborative work of many organisations, teams and individuals, and we owe them all an immense debt of gratitude. We cannot wait for EIFF 2026.”
Isabel Davis, Executive Director, Screen Scotland has said: “Filmmakers, audiences, and industry have been brought together thanks to a very strong proposition from Paul and the team at EIFF: the world premiere feature and short competitions, extraordinary insight from some of the most exciting filmmakers working today, and opportunities to network across the festival including with the Fringe being some of the highlights. With Cameo, the newly re-opened Filmhouse, Vue and the National Gallery all screening films and with Tollcross Central Hall now the recognized industry place to be and events venue, the festival has taken another confident step forward.”
EIFF 2025 is supported by Screen Scotland and the BFI Audience Projects Fund, awarding National Lottery funding, EventScotland part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate, and the industry programme is backed by EXPO funding from the Scottish Government through Creative Scotland.
Edinburgh International Film Festival ran from Thursday 14 to Wednesday 20 August 2025.
Image: All the Devils are Here
Image Credit: Kat Gollock
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