Richard Dreyfuss, Timothy Spall and David Hayman heading to EIFF

Festival announces red carpet talent

by Amber Wilkinson

Richard Dreyfuss will attend the festival in support of the world premiere of Astronaut
Richard Dreyfuss will attend the festival in support of the world premiere of Astronaut Photo: Courtesy of EIFF
Richard Dreyfuss, Timothy Spall and David Hayman will be among the stars attending this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Other confirmed attendees include Spanish director Icíar Bollaín - who has a section of the festival dedicated to her work - director Douglas Mackinnon and composer David Arnold, who will be attending a special screening of Good Omens.

Artistic director Mark Adams said: “The chance for our audiences who come along to Festival screenings and get to see and sometimes meet some of the film talent involved is always a highpoint of the EIFF experience. We love to have guests at our screenings and to involve them in post-screening Q&A sessions and I think the guests themselves also get a kick out of the experience.”

Dreyfuss will be in town for the world premiere of Astronaut, in which he stars as a lonely widower dreaming of a trip to space, while Spall will attend in support of the world premiere of closing night gala Mrs Lowry & Son on the final night of the Festival.

Other guests will include director Ninian Doff, whose Boyz In The Wood will open the festival on June 19, alongside producer Brian Coffey and cast members Rian Gordon, Lewis Gribben, Samuel Bottomley and Viraj Juneja.

Director Jamie Adams - who has Bittersweet Symphony and Balance, Not Symmetry at the festival - will also attend with actress Shauna Macdonald. Angus Macfadyen will attend a screening of Robert The Bruce, alongside director Richard Gray and cast including Anna Hutchison, Zach McGowan and Emma Kenney, while Peter Mullan will join Scottish composer Craig Armstrong, who also composed the music for Mrs Lowry & Son, to take part in a conversation.

Star of hit series The IT Crowd Katherine Parkinson will attend the UK Premiere of How To Fake A War alongside director Rudolph Herzog; director Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje will attend for Farming, his directorial debut; stars of Best Before Death, Tam Dean Burn, Bill Drummond and photographer amd filmmaker, Tracey Moberley, will attend alongside the film’s director, Paul Duane; the World Premiere of Liberté: A Call to Spy will see its stars Sarah Megan Thomas and director Lydia Dean Pilcher on the red carpet and screenwriter Paul Laverty will also be in town for screenings of My Name is Joe and Carla’s Song.

In conjunction with the festival's focus on Spain this year, a wealth of Spanish talent will also attend, including Cages film director and screenwriter Nicolás Pacheco (Cages); director of Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed, David Trueba; the cast of h0us3, including Anna Bertrán, Víctor Gómez, Cristina Raya, Rubén Serrano, Mariona Tena, Miriam Tortosa and director Manolo Munguía and director of The Hidden City, Victor Moreno.

World class Sommelier Josep Roca of El Celler de Can Roca, holder of 3 Michelin stars, will also be in attendance for the UK Premiere of Chef’s Diaries: Scotland.”

Hayman, meanwhile, is one of the stars who will join the juries this year - a notable inclusion as he was the first winner of the Michael Powell Award for Best British Film with Silent Scream in 1990. Also signing up for jury duty are Scots actors Jack Lowden and Moyo Akandé. multi-award-winning director and screenwriter Philip John, Natalie Brenner, Head of Sales at Metro International, film writer Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Frederick Tsui of Hong Kong-based production company Media Asia.

Spanish filmmaker Daniel Monzón, whose adaptation of Cell 211 is screening as part of this year’s retrospective programme will sit alongside Cleveland International Film Festival Artistic Director, Bill Guentzler, Northern Irish actress and former fashion designer Antonia Campbell-Hughes, documentary and experimental filmmaker and co-director of Copenhagen Web Fest Regina Mosch and film critic Tara Karajica.

The festival runs from June 19 to June 30.

Share this with others on...
News

Between strangers Anthony Chen in capturing emotion in Drift

Art of observation Matthäus Wörle on his collaborative approach to debut documentary Where We Used To Sleep

Gateway between worlds Anu Valia on expectations, reality and We Strangers

The little things Inside the 2024 Glasgow Short Film Festival

Choosing her colours Joe Lawlor and Christine Malloy on Rose Dugdale and Baltimore

Fateful experiences Ron Frank on Remembering Gene Wilder

Filmhouse gets £1.5m funding boost Edinburgh cultural hub set to reopen this year

More news and features

Interact

More competitions coming soon.