The 2005 Edinburgh International Film Festival opened with Richard E Grant's directorial debut Wah-Wah - based on events from his own childhood in South Africa - and closed with Eighties-set gangster flick The Business.

Other highlights included the long-awaited cowboys-in-space film spin-off Serenity and Tsotsi - which won both the Audience and Michael Powell Awards for director Gavin Hood. Other winners included Mike Mills, who won the Guardian New Directors Award for Thumbsucker. John Williams won the Best British Short Film Award for Hibernation and Elizabeth Hobbs scooped the McLaren for New British Animation for The True Story Of Sawney Beane. Simon Hynd won Short Scottish Documentary Awarad for Arts: The Catalyst.