Heading for Edinburgh?

As the Edinburgh Film Festival cranks up for its August swansong - following the announcement that it will move to the less cluttered month of June from next year - here at Eye For Film we're looking forward to it. Even now our diarist is in hibernation - trying to store up on all the sleep he won't be getting over the next couple of weeks.

Last year, the festival showed 114 feature films - and we covered 111 of them. Apologies to the three that escaped - we're aiming for the full set this time around.

Founded way back in 1947, the festival was originally dedicated to documentaries - a strand that it's still very proud of. Factual films to look out for this year include In The Shadow Of The Moon - actually screening in the Gala section - which won plaudits for its UK director David Sington at Sundance. Featuring never-seen-before footage his documentary sees surviving crew members of the Apollo missions tell their stories. While Sington's film has a broad scope, many of the documentaries at this year's festival focus on smaller - but equally compelling - stories, including Crazy Love, which tells of the love of one woman for the man who blinded her in rage and Mr Vig And The Nun, a tale of a most unusual friendship.

Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart

These days, of course, it is the Gala strand of the film festival which tends to grab the most headlines, and with the premieres of comedies Knocked Up and The Year Of The Dog, plus hard-hitting drama A Mighty Heart, about murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, this year is likely to be no exception. In fact, at the time of writing an extra screening of A Mighty Heart had been added to the programme, due to demand for tickets. The presence of Judd Apatow - who wrote Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin - will doubtless ramp up interest.

Among the other star names heading for the Capital are master of trash John Waters, British veteran Bob Hoskins and French star Julie Delpy - whose film Two Days In Paris will wrap up the fest.

There's plenty for you to enjoy with your family, even if you've missed out on tickets to the much-touted premiere of Ratatouille. Family Animation offers a selection of short films suitable for all ages, while The Italian is an excellent drama in the Oliver Twist vein, that would particularly suit older children - although they would need to be confident readers, since the film is subtitled.

And it isn't just the big names and blockbusters of tomorrow which get their chance in the limelight. The EIFF also presents a great opportunity to see many foreign films which may only screen on the festival circuit. With films from 31 countries represented, there's a chance to see the likes of Faro - Goddess Of The Waters, one of many films now emerging from Africa, and XXY, an the Argentinian winner of the Cannes International Critics Week Grand Prize.

Justin Edgar's Special People has been adapted from his 2004 short

If tickets to films by established names such as Quentin Tarantino (Death Proof) and Gus Van Sant (Paranoid Park, Mala Noche) are hard to come by, why not branch out and take a look at the upcoming stars of tomorrow? The Rosebud section of the festival aims to highlight the work of first and second-time directors. If you want to see where many start out, check out one of the many short film showcases on offer, several of which feature established short film directors such as Leigh Hodgkinson's award-winning Flighty and Matthew Walker's follow-up to the excellent Astronauts as well as emerging talent, like Selina Cobley (Crown Moon). There's plenty of new blood in the British Gala section, too, with debuts from the likes of Justin Edgar - whose feature Special People has been adapted from his 2004 short film that screened at the festival - and Chris Love - whose crime thriller Sugarhouse has garnered an all-star cast including Steven Mackintosh and Andy Serkis.

There's plenty for lovers of experimental cinema to get their kicks from, too, with the likes of Nina Menkes' Phantom Love exploring psychosexual terrain and Andrew Kötting's ongoing multi-media project In The Wake Of A Deadad.

To help you choose, we'll be bringing you daily updates, plus we'll be featuring on Festival FM every evening to help you get the best from the fest.

Read our full coverage here.