Stars ready for big screen celebrations and premieres at city film festival
THEY are some of the biggest names of the film world and have been responsible for a string of major box office blockbusters over the past four decades.
Now stars such as Kevin Bacon, Stanley Tucci, Oliver Stone and Richard E Grant will be among the guests at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival.
The festival will feature 151 films from 46 countries, including the UK premiere of Cars 3, and will use a new cinema for the first time, the Vue in Leith Street.
The festival will, as announced, open with the British drama God’s Own Country and end with the Morrissey drama England Is Mine.
Kevin Bacon will be at the festival, which runs from June 21 to July 2 for Story Of A Girl, while other guests will include Ian Hart, Jack Lowden, Trudie Styler,
Juliet Stevenson and David Arnold.
Oliver Stone will present a special 30th anniversary screening of Wall Street, and author Ian Rankin will present the crime drama Reichenbach Falls.
The previously announced retrospective season will also include appearances from Richard E Grant, Kate Dickie, Tam Dean Burn, Bernard Hill, and Matt Johnson.
Mark Adams, director of the festival, said: “We have been trying to get Richard E Grant for years and years, but it is the 30th anniversary of Withnail And I, which is such a great cult film.
“We have also been trying to get David Arnold for a long time as well, so we are thrilled to have him.
“The festival feels very buoyant, you are defined by the strength of the films – you can have great ambitions but it is about the films – so I am really pleased with the opening film. I think God’s Own Country is one of this year’s best British movies, and closing with the world premiere of England Is Mine, which is fun, looking at Morrissey before he was famous. It is funny as well as a lovely evocation of a period.”
British films in the festival include Bryn Higgins’ Access All Areas, featuring Jordan Stephens – one half of hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks – on a group road trip to the Isle of Wight’s Bestival music Festival; Simon Hunter’s Edie, starring Sheila Hancock as an elderly woman who aims to climb a Scottish mountain; the Donmar Warehouse’s all-female adaptation of
Julius Caesar; and Danny Huston’s The Last Photograph, which addresses the legacy of the Lockerbie bomb.
The Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film and Best Performance in a British Feature Film Award will be selected from the UK film strand, which includes eight world premieres, three UK premieres and one European premiere. Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10am.