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Edinburgh International Film Festival · 2023

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2023

Feature film programme

Programme

20 films · 13 reviews

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Afire (Roter Himmel)

Review preview for Afire

Petzold’s most literary film to date.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 5 out of 5
Tensions and desire bloom among five people at a holiday home by the Baltic Sea.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2023; Director: Christian Petzold; Writer: Christian Petzold; Stars: Thomas Schubert, Paula Beer, Langston Uibel, Enno Trebs, Matthias Brandt)

Full review See: Thomas Schubert on imposter syndrome and tonal ambiguity in Afire , Christian Petzold in conversation on Afire (Roter Himmel), An Affair To Remember, summers, and pronouncing Walter Benjamin and Uwe Johnson , Christian Petzold in conversation on Afire (Roter Himmel) and summer movies

Art College 1994

Animation set in 90s China. A group of young people prepare to face a world caught between tradition and modernity.

(Country: China; Year: 2023; Director: Liu Jian; Writer: Liu Jian)

Choose Irvine (Choose Irvine Welsh)

Review preview for Choose Irvine

In search of authenticity that is a lot of artificiality.

Andrew Robertson · 2 out of 5
Profile of the Trainspotting author.

(Country: UK; Year: 2023; Director: Ian Jefferies; Stars: Irvine Welsh, Iggy Pop, Gail Porter, Martin Compston)

Full review

Femme

Review preview for Femme

The tension is masterfully handled in a revenge thriller narrative which also poses difficult ethical questions.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
Jules is a drag artist in London. After a performance, he is brutally attacked and, traumatised, withdraws into himself. Months later, he recognises his assailant in a gay sauna and begins an affair with him, incognito. A revenge thriller.

(Country: UK; Year: 2023; Director: Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping; Writer: Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping; Stars: George MacKay, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett)

Full review

The First Slam Dunk

Review preview for The First Slam Dunk

The basketball sequences grab the eye as firmly as the players grasp the ball.

Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
Hanamichi Sakuragi is a delinquent with a long history of getting dumped by girls. After enrolling in Shohoku High School, Hanamichi becomes interested in a girl named Haruko who loves the game of basketball.

(Country: Japan; Year: 2022; Director: Takehiko Inoue, Yasuyuki Ebara; Writer: Takehiko Inoue; Stars: Masaya Fukunishi, Yoshiaki Hasegawa, Katsuhisa Hôki, Tetsu Inada, Ryota Iwasaki)

Full review

Is There Anybody Out There?

Review preview for Is There Anybody Out There?

There’s lot of video footage of her playing as a child, obviously very happy and doing the same kinds of things as any other kid her age.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
While navigating daily discrimination, a filmmaker who inhabits and loves her unusual body searches the world for another person like her, and explores what it takes to love oneself fiercely despite the pervasiveness of ableism.

(Country: UK; Year: 2023; Director: Ella Glendining)

Full review See: Ella Glendining on Is There Anybody Out There?

Joram

Revenge thriller.

(Country: India; Year: 2023; Director: Devashish Makhija)

Kill

A hunting trip turns deadly when three brothers plot to take out their abusive father.

(Country: UK; Year: 2023; Director: Rodger Griffiths)

The Lynda Myles Project: A Manifesto

Work-in-progress documentary about the producer and ex-EIFF director.

(Country: UK; Year: 2023; Director: Susan Kemp)

Orlando, My Political Biography (Orlando, ma biographie politique)

Review preview for Orlando, My Political Biography

Capturing the experience of living in a world where one’s gender doesn’t fit better than almost any other film to date, Preciado’s work is all about claiming space and present day narrative.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
Docufiction interpretation of Virginia Woolf's novel.

(Country: France; Year: 2023; Director: Paul B Preciado; Writer: Paul B Preciado; Stars: Paul B Preciado)

Full review

Passages

Review preview for Passages

One of the most subtle films of the ongoing year.

Levan Tskhovrebadze · 3.5 out of 5
A married man cheats on his husband with a woman... then tells him about it.

(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Ira Sachs; Writer: Mauricio Zacharias; Stars: Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, Adèle Exarchopoulos)

Full review

Past Lives

Review preview for Past Lives

To say too much about what happens in each episode would be to spoil the joy of encountering Song’s finely worked screenplay, which lets its characters' emotions glitter in the light.

Amber Wilkinson · 5 out of 5
Nora and Hae Sung, two childhood friends, are separated from each other when Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Two decades later, they are reunited in New York where Nora now lives with her American husband.

(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: Celine Song; Writer: Celine Song; Stars: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro)

Full review

Property (Propriedade)

When rebelling workers occupy Teresa’s family estate, she flees at the last minute into an armoured car. She is trapped, but refuses to negotiate.

(Country: Brazil; Year: 2022; Director: Daniel Bandeira; Stars: Malu Galli, Zuleika Ferreira, Tavinho Teixeira, Samuel Santos, Edilson Silva)

Raging Grace

Review preview for Raging Grace

Raging Grace is a Gothic thriller with the potential to appeal to a wide audience. It’s also a fierce critique of the racism embedded in a culture which still treats it as normal for some perfectly capable people to be waited on by others, and to treat them as less than human in the process.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
An undocumented Filipina immigrant is struggling to do the best she can for her daughter when she secures the perfect job, taking care of an extremely wealthy but terminal old man. The new position pays well and guarantees a roof over their heads but very soon, she realise that something is amiss.

(Country: UK; Year: 2023; Director: Paris Zarcilla; Writer: Paris Zarcilla; Stars: Max Eigenman, Leanne Best, David Hayman)

Full review See: Interview with Paris Zarcilla and Chi Thai about Raging Grace

Showing Up

Drama about an artist on the verge of an exhibition.

(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: Kelly Reichardt; Writer: Jonathan Raymond, Kelly Reichardt; Stars: Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, Maryann Plunkett, John Magaro, André 3000, Judd Hirsch, Amanda Plummer, Matt Malloy, Heather Lawless, James Le Gros, Denzel Rodriguez, Eudora Peterson, Ted Rooney, Rowan Vik, Orianna Milne)

The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde

Concerned by his good friend Dr Henry Jekyll's recent behaviour, Gabriel Utterson is driven to uncover the identity of the mysterious and dangerous Mr. Hyde, to whom Jekyll is enthralled.

(Country: UK; Year: 2022; Director: Hope Dickson Leach; Writer: Vlad Butucea and Hope Dickson Leach, based on the book by Robert Louis Stevenson; Stars: David Hayman, Lorn Macdonald, Henry Pettigrew, Peter Singh, Alison Peebles, Tam Dean Burn)

Superposition

Review preview for Superposition

Whilst there is an element of science fiction here, co-writer/director Karoline Lyngbye focuses on the psychological possibilities that it opens up.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
A couple and their young son choose to move to a remote cabin in the Danish Forest for an experiment in off-grid living, with no human contact for a year. When they encounter another family in the forest, identical to themselves in almost every way, the fabric of their identities faces a test.

(Country: Denmark; Year: 2023; Director: Karoline Lyngbye; Writer: Karoline Lyngbye)

Full review See: Interview with Karoline Lyngbye about Superposition

Trenque Lauquen (Trenque Lauquen Part I, Trenque Lauquen Part II)

Review preview for Trenque Lauquen

Almost every part of this slowburn road to not quite the middle of nowhere could be read either as a clue or a clever maguffin.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Story set in the Argentinian city of the title, centring on an academic who has disappeared. The story is told across two feature films.

(Year: 2022; Director: Laura Citarella; Stars: Elisa Carricajo, Verónica Llinás, Juliana Muras, Laura Paredes, Ezequiel Pierri, Cecilia Rainero, Rafael Spregelburd)

Full review See: Laura Citarella on the winding roads and mysteries of Trenque Lauquen

Your Fat Friend

Review preview for Your Fat Friend

Viewers are likely to go away appreciating Aubrey’s frustrations and perhaps, if they share them, feeling validated, but without the tools to do anything about them.

Jennie Kermode · 2.5 out of 5
Popular anonymous blogger Aubrey Gordon spent five years writing about the realities of living as a self-described “very fat person.” Now, she is about to face the public for the very first time.

(Country: US, UK; Year: 2023; Director: Jeanie Finlay; Stars: Aubrey Gordon)

Full review