The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), which will take place from Friday 18-Wednesday 23 August, has announced its line-up of special guests, including veteran directors like Shane Meadows and Ira Sachs, as well as up-and-coming acting talent like Chinenye Ezeudu, best known for her role in Sex Education. 

On Friday 18 August, EIFF will open with the world premiere of Silent Roar, the debut feature from BAFTA-nominated Scottish writer and director Johnny Barrington. Barrington will be in attendance to present the film, alongside the film’s stars Ella Lily Hyland (Fifteen Love), Louis McCartney, Mark Lockyer, and Chinenye Ezeudu (Sex Education).   

On Saturday 19 August, acclaimed director Ira Sachs (Love is Strange, Little Men) will be on hand to present his intimate new feature Passages, an erotic thriller starring Ben Wishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos. Sachs will also participate in a special Sunday Salon event on Sunday 20 August to discuss queer cinema and representations of intimacy with 2020 Booker Prize nominated writer Brandon Taylor (Real Life, The Late Americans).  

Filmmaker Ella Glendining will also attend the festival on Saturday to present her documentary Is There Anybody Out There? which examines questions of disability on a journey to find herself in others. Writer/director Karoline Lyngbye will join EIFF to present Superposition, her chilling existential thriller. In the Festival’s strand of outdoor screenings, Cinema Under The Stars, director Charlotte Regan will present her Sundance award-winning feature film Scrapper.   

On Sunday 20 August,  LGBTQ+ romance Chuck Chuck Baby will receive its world Premiere, with director Janis Pugh in attendance. Filmmakers Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping will attend the Festival to present their tense, stylish thriller about desire and self-loathing, Femme. Director Bette Gordon will join the Festival for a 40th anniversary retrospective screening of her neo-noir feminist classic Variety. Huw Lemmey, host of podcast Bad Gays, will present Ungentle, a study of British espionage and homosexual identity. And at Cinema Under The Stars, artist Julia Parks will present Wool Aliens, a series of short films, created during a residency in Hawick in the Scottish Borders. The screenings will be preceded by a performance from musician Miwa Nagato-Apthorp.  

On Monday 21 August, Director Hope Dickson-Leach (The Levelling) will join cast member David Hayman to present the world Ppemiere of her atmospheric Edinburgh-set period thriller The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde. David Hayman will also join writer/director Paris Zarcilla to present his chilling debut film Raging Grace, a haunting gothic horror which recently took the Grand Jury Prize at South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival.  And Jeanie Finlay will in Edinburgh to present her portrait of author, activist and podcaster Aubrey Gordon in Your Fat Friend.

On Tuesday 22 August, Director Rodger Griffiths will attend EIFF to promote his debut feature Kill, alongside the film’s stars Paul Higgins (The Thick of It), Daniel Portman (Game of Thrones), Callum Ross, Anita Vettesse, and Brian Vernel (Dunkirk). A forgotten gem of American indie cinema, Tokyo Pop has been newly restored to mark the film’s 35th anniversary, and writer/director Fran Rubel Kuzui (better known as the director of the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie) and producer Kaz Kuzui will present the film. The Lead actor of Afire, Thomas Schubert, will present the Festival’s screening of the film. Rounding off Tuesday will be Shane Meadows, who’ll join producer Mark Herbert for a retrospective screening of his revenge thriller Dead Man’s Shoes, which received its world premiere at EIFF in 2004. 

Wednesday 23 August, the final night of EIFF, will find Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh join director Ian Jeffries to present the world premiere of their new documentary Choose Irvine Welsh, charting the author’s life and philosophy in his own words and those of his collaborators and admirers. The festival will close with deadpan dramedy Fremont, presented by the film’s director Babak Jalali and writer Carolina Cavalli.  

The Edinburgh International Film Festival will take place from Friday 18-Wednesday 23 August.