The Edinburgh International Film Festival has kicked off in style, with a strong opening lineup that has critics buzzing about the quality and variety on show this year.
Leading the early praise is Louis Paxton’s debut feature The Incomer, an absurd culture-clash comedy that has quickly become one of the most talked-about films of the festival’s opening days. The film leans hard into its comedic premise, delivering the kind of sharp, offbeat humour that tends to do well with Edinburgh audiences, and it has landed with reviewers as a genuinely confident and entertaining piece of work. For a festival opener, it sets a promising tone.
But The Incomer is far from the only film turning heads. Douglas Gordon by Douglas Gordon, a documentary portrait of the Turner Prize-winning Scottish artist, has been described as creatively unhinged in the best possible way. Gordon, who has spent decades pushing boundaries in visual art and film, turns the documentary format into something altogether stranger and more personal. It is the kind of project that could only come from an artist willing to tear up the rulebook, and it has impressed critics looking for something that feels genuinely different from the usual festival fare.
The festival has also screened Her Private Hell, Pretty Babies, Bad Day at the Office, and Bodyhackers, rounding out a varied early programme that spans drama, horror, and documentary. Each film brings something different to the table, and together they suggest this year’s EIFF is in good shape heading into its busiest period.
The Edinburgh International Film Festival has long been one of the most important dates in the Scottish cultural calendar. Founded in 1947, it holds the distinction of being one of the oldest continually running film festivals in the world, and it has historically been a place where new talent gets noticed and bold filmmaking gets celebrated. After a few years of uncertainty around its format and funding, there is a sense this year that the festival is finding its feet again and reasserting itself as a serious platform for cinema.
For Scottish filmmakers in particular, EIFF represents a vital opportunity to get work in front of audiences and industry figures without having to travel to Cannes or Sundance. The presence of homegrown talent like Paxton and Gordon in the early programme sends a clear signal that Scottish voices are central to what the festival wants to celebrate.
The Incomer, with its culture-clash comedy setup, taps into something that feels very current. Stories about outsiders arriving in tight-knit communities, and the friction and absurdity that follows, have proven fertile ground for Scottish filmmakers in recent years. Paxton appears to have found a fresh angle on that well-worn premise, and early word suggests the film has both laughs and something more thoughtful underneath.
Douglas Gordon by Douglas Gordon is a different beast entirely. Gordon is one of Scotland’s most internationally recognised artists, best known for works like 24 Hour Psycho, which slowed Hitchcock’s classic film down to a crawl and turned it into a meditation on time and memory. Turning that same restless, questioning energy onto himself and his own life and work makes for a documentary that refuses to sit still or behave the way you might expect.
With the festival now in full swing, audiences in Edinburgh have a packed schedule ahead of them. The coming days will bring more screenings, Q&As, and the kind of chance encounters between filmmakers and filmgoers that make festivals worth attending in the first place.
If the opening titles are anything to go by, this year’s EIFF looks like one worth paying attention to.