Edinburgh International Film Festival: 'Pop up' screen at National Gallery to host screenings in August

A “pop up” screen in the bowels of the National Gallery of Scotland is to host screenings for the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF).

The Hawthornden Theatre, which usually hosts conferences and lectures inside the gallery, located on The Mound in the heart of Edinburgh city centre, is to act alongside the newly-refurbished Filmhouse and the Cameo cinema as a venue for the annual event in August.

The festival will also use space at Fringe comedy venue Monkey Barrel, as well as Vue in the Omni Centre.

Meanwhile, Tollcross Central Hall will act as the EIFF’s Festival Hub for industry and press delegates, as well as hosting public-facing in-conversation events with major filmmaking talent.

The festival’s industry programme will run in this venue, including panels, talks, networking events and meeting spaces, open to delegates each day of the festival. Monkey Barrel Comedy will also play host to some of this year’s festival events.

Paul Ridd, chief executive and festival director of EIFF, said “We are thrilled to be working with the reopened Filmhouse as well as Vue Cinema this year. These are exciting firsts for us as the completely new, revamped and relaunched iteration of the festival going into our second year, but they carry with them the legacy of EIFF’s history in the city and deep connection with these vital venues.”

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Mr Ridd added: “We are also delighted to return to The Cameo Cinema and to transform Tollcross Central Hall into a buzzy Festival Hub and a beautiful space at the National Galleries Scotland: National into a state of the art pop-up screening venue. We cannot wait to pack these big, beautiful spaces with our rich programme of film screenings, events and talks across the seven days of our festival.”

The Filmhouse, Vue and Cameo cinemas will be joined by the Hawthornden Theatre in the National Gallery of Scotland on the Mound as venues for this year's Edinburgh International Film festival. | EIFF

The EIFF will announce its full programme line-up later this week. Sorry, Baby, an indie film that premiered to critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival is to open the reborn film festival’s second edition. Meanwhile, the World Premiere of Paul Sng’s immersive documentary Reality Is Not Enough - an exploration of Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh - as the closing night film of this year’s festival.

The autobiographical film combines intimate observational footage, rare archive film clips and readings from his novels narrated by screen stars Liam Neeson, Maxine Peake, Ruth Negga and Stephen Graham, and musician Nick Cave. Reality Is Not Enough was co-financed and produced by Edinburgh-based production company LS Films, with the support of Screen Scotland and with Sarah Drummond as executive producer.

The EIFF’s connection with the Filmhouse has a long history. Arts charity the Centre for the Moving Image was behind both the venue and the festival. However, the organisation fell into the hands of administrators in 2022. The Filmhouse was subsequently shuttered for two years and reopened last weekend after a £1.7 million refurbishment and a lengthy fundraising campaign.

The festival was relaunched last year under new management.