Streaming has been a literal godsend through this pandemic, keeping us calm and entertained at home on lockdown while the world outside feels more uncertain than ever. As wonderful as it has been in some ways to finally have the time to binge all the telly and films your heart desires, variety is the spice of life – not the Netflix queue, nor more tired re-runs of Friends. So it's time to close the box set, because our pals over at the Edinburgh International Film Festival are here to help shake things up with their new 12-day digital festival, EdFilmFest at Home.

Streaming to our homes from Wed 24 June to Sun 5 July, EdFilmFest at Home is a brand new initiative created in partnership with Curzon Home Cinema. After the 74th edition of the EIFF was sadly postponed due to the ongoing lockdown restrictions, the two iconic cinephile institutions have worked together to curate a selection of upcoming films not yet released in cinemas, as a means of satiating our appetite for new films and plugging the widening gaps in our festival calendar. A new film will be released every day of the festival, each priced at £9.99 and remaining online for between 2 to 12 days. Alongside the robust film programme, there will also be a selection of live Q&As with special guests, which will soon be announced.

The full schedule will be released 17 June, but the films currently on the roster for EdFilmFest at Home include Ron Howard's documentary Rebuilding Paradise, which follows the rebuilding efforts of the residents of Paradise, California, after the 2018 fire that razed their home to the ground, as well as the documentary Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, directed by Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky and Nicolas de Pencier, and narrated by Alicia Vikander, which explores the devastating impact that unfettered human consumption has had on our planet.

Other highlights include Fanny Lye Delivered, a horror-thriller set in Shropshire in the year 1657, starring Maxine Peake and Charles Dance; Jóhann Jóhannsson's directorial debut The Last and First Man, a sci-fi essay which loosely adapts Olaf Stapledon's novel of the same name, narrated by Tilda Swinton; The Dardenne brothers' feature Young Ahmed, about a Belgian teen who hatches a plot to murder his teacher; and Perfumes, a French comedy about a woman whose incredible olfactory facility makes her a big name in the perfume world.

Rod White, the EIFF's Director of Programming, says of the new initiative: 'We can't bring you the Edinburgh International Film Festival this year quite as and when you know it, but we are finding ways to adapt and to share our passion for films through new initiatives. We want to give our industry something to get excited about whilst all UK cinemas are closed, and get the cinema-going public excited about what films are in store for them in cinemas when we return so we've joined forces with Curzon Home Cinema to end (at least temporarily) this new-release hiatus.

We've handpicked a selection of some of the best upcoming films from the future film release schedules and are delighted we can share those with our audiences across the UK, giving them the opportunity to see them before they [hopefully] reach our cinemas later in the year. Additionally, we've also arranged for many of them to be accompanied by online Q&As with the filmmakers which will be live and interactive when each film is released and then available with the stream for the duration it is on EDFILMFEST AT HOME. We're hugely grateful to all the distributors who have supplied films for this series.'

EdFilmFest at Home runs from Wed 24 June–Sun 5 July. The film will be available to view at edfilmfest.org.uk and curzonhomecinema.com.

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