Olympic short movies to premiere at film festival

Four short films by top British directors including Mike Leigh and Scotland’s Lynne Ramsay are to premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The four – including Ramsay’s film The Swimmer, following a lone “wild” swimmer through lakes, rivers and coves across Britain – were commissioned as part of the London 2012 Festival for the Cultural Olympiad, to showcase British film-making talent.

The films will get their world premiere showing in Edinburgh on 24 June, ahead of a live broadcast to 50 cinemas around the UK the following day. Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, starring Tilda Swinton, premiered at Cannes last year.

The Swimmer boasts a soundtrack of seminal British music, including The La’s, as well as underwater recordings and snippets of the conversations of passers-by.

Leigh’s film A Running Jump features identical twins Danielle and Nichole Bird in the 35-minute movie.

The other films are The Odyssey, by Asif Kapadia, director of the recent documentary hit Senna, and What If is by Streetdance directing duo Max Giwa and Dania Pasquini.