The shortlists have been announced for The List’s new Edinburgh Festival awards which shine a light on the rich array of Art, Book, Film, Fringe and International festivals this summer.  The incredible line-up of artists and works highlighted in the shortlists show the diversity, quality and power of work that can be seen at the Edinburgh Festivals in August. Through these important new awards, The List wants to pay tribute to the artists who make this very special landmark a reality. 

ART - Best rising Scottish artist

Renèe Helèna Browne: Sanctus!

At the City Art Centre, film installation Sanctus! explores devotion in relation to portraiture, faith, and belonging.

Flannery O’kafka: For Willy Love and Booker T: Blue babies do whatever they want 

At Sierra Metro, Flannery O’kafka’s installation presents a soft subversion of gender performance, respectability, and the picturing of disability. 

Rory Dixon: Heavy without it II

The vibrantly flamboyant solo exhibition by Sett Studios’ youngest and brightest Rory Dixon, aka DJ Dynamite, poses a pertinent question: What is style? 

BOOKS - Best rising Scottish author

K Patrick

In their ground-breaking debut book of poems, Three Births, K Patrick interrogates the erotic and the romantic, with the powerful message that we should be able to inhabit the body we want to inhabit and love freely within this.  

Rachelle Atalla

The Salt Flats follows six strangers’ journey to a retreat in the salt flats of Bolivia, desperate to find a cure for their various ills. 

Shane Strachan

Shane Strachan’s poetry collection, DWAMS, is at times humorous and brutal, exploring climate emergency, xenophobia, and Queer romance in North East Scotland. 

FILM - Best Scottish film

Since Yesterday: The Untold Story Of Scotland’s Girl Bands (directed by Carla J. Easton and Blair Young)

The revealing, funny and engaging documentary tracks the history of Scottish girl bands from the 1960s to the present, exploring bands, cliques and movements that emerged across the decades, exposing the challenges faced in a male dominated world.

Duck (directed by Rachel Maclean)

A daring deepfake short from avant-garde filmmaker Rachel Maclean.

A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things (directed by Mark Cousins)

Years after her death, filmmaker Mark Cousins looks at the life and work of Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham in this love-letter to an imagination that shows a secret code. 

FRINGE – Sit-Up Award for Best Production with a Social Impact

FAMEHUNGRY, Summerhall

A helter-skelter nose-dive into the TikTok universe, the attention economy, and what it means to be an artist now.

300 Paintings, Summerhall

Winner of eight Australian Fringe Festival awards. Sydney artist and comedian Sam Kissajukian examines 300 paintings created during a five-month long manic bipolar episode. An epic story exploring art, mental health and creativity.

The Chaos That Has Been And Will No Doubt Return, Summerhall

Two best mates. One huge party. Luton pinned by austerity. An evening of noughties bangers and shots of shitty gin mixed with the chaos of violence. A night to remember!

FRINGE – International Fringe Encore Series Edinburgh Prize

Weather Girl, Summerhall

A dizzying rampage into the soul of American strangeness, this blistering dark comedy is all about wrecking the places we love.

A Giant On The Bridge, Assembly Roxy

Unflinching, spellbinding gig theatre devised by award-winning theatre maker Liam Hurley and songwriter Jo Mango, also featuring Louis Abbott (Admiral Fallow), Raveloe and Solareye.

A Letter To Lyndon B Johnson Or God: Whoever Reads This First, theSpace 

Boyhood is all about spit-shakes, rope swings and playing soldiers. But what happens when the pretend becomes all too real and the childhood tales become harder to retell? 

My Mother's Funeral: The Show, Summerhall

With power and playfulness, Kelly Jones’s new play tackles the inequalities around death, and the cost of turning your loved ones into art.

FRINGE - Best show from Adelaide

Lewis Major: Triptych, Assembly @Dance Base

Three unique repertoire pieces investigate various poetic possibilities, universal rhythms and cycles performed by Major's company of dancers. 

B.L.I.P.S., Summerhall

A wild ride of real-life circus psychosis, acrobatic madness, hula-hoop hope and radical resilience, B.L.I.P.S. is a touching retelling about the chaos of psychosis, told through beautiful imagery, physical feats, lip-sync, home videos and circus virtuosity. 

Ten Thousand Hours, Assembly Hall

Gravity & Other Myths new show is an ode to the countless hours needed to achieve great things. Eight acrobats investigate physical skill: how we obtain it, how we perfect it and how it can transform our lives. 

Fool’s Paradise, Pleasance Courtyard

Rising-star Britt Plummer’s bittersweet long-distance love story is a heartbreakingly hilarious show which fuses storytelling, puppetry, and clowning into a modern-day fringe rom-com.

FRINGE – Best Show

Natalie Palamides: WEER, Traverse Theatre

Edinburgh Comedy Award Winner Natalie Palamides (Nate, Netflix) presents an achingly tender 90s rom-drom (romantic dramedy) which asks you to look at every argument from two sides.

These Are The Contents Of My Head (The Annie Lennox Show), Assembly Checkpoint

Annie Lennox’s transcendent solo album DIVA stands at the centre of this sparkling story about strong, defiant women and the little gay boy who loves them. Salty Brine defies the cabaret form in ways that must be witnessed to be believed.

So Young, Traverse Theatre

Thumbing through a record collection, having a glass of wine, remembering the old times. There’s nothing better than catching up with old friends. Douglas Maxwell’s So Young sees an innocuous evening slide into ruin as old friends face the challenges of middle age, growing apart and losing those close to them.

Sawdust Symphony, ZOO Southside

In Sawdust Symphony, Michael Zandl, David Eisele and Kolja Huneck combine their passion for crafting, object manipulation and fresh wood as carpentry and circus collide, exploring the human desire to create.

Monkeys Everywhere, Pleasance Courtyard

Award-winning Garry Starr tries to find calm amongst the mayhem that fills his monkey mind.

Monkeys Everywhere is a show for all ages – but especially for those who can’t always keep their monkeys under control.

INTERNATIONAL – Best Show

Songs Of The Bulbul 

Aakash Odedra’s spiritual and captivating new work, creates a sensitive dialogue between the Indian classical dance Sufi Kathak and Islamic poetry.  This dance piece explores an ancient Sufi myth about a captured bulbul, which sings an exquisite tune before perishing from despair.

Up Lates: Wynton Marsalis

Legendary American jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis launched the Festival’s Up Late series.  Wynton Marsalis is one of the world’s most renowned jazz musicians, whose performances and compositions have earned him nine Grammy Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Music. 

Please Right Back

Combining handcrafted animation and bold storytelling, Please Right Back from award-winning company 1927, swept audiences into a magical, mischievous world, inspired by the writer-director's own childhood.

The List Festival Awards, Johnnie Walker Princes Street, Friday 23 August, 3pm-6pm; Pictures: Aly Wight, Andrew Perry, Maxime Ragni, Jona Harnischmacher, Daniel Albanese, Harry Elletson, Tommy Ga-Ken Wan, Mihaela Bodlovic, CleÌmence Rebourg, Simon McClure, Peter Tsimopp, Chris Herzfeld, David Lewis, Graham Gavin, Alice Zoo and Neil Hanna.