The Edinburgh International Film Festival opened Thursday for its 79th edition, launching a week of premieres, retrospectives and a 30th-anniversary reunion for "Trainspotting" that runs through Aug. 19.
The festival opens with "The Incomer," the debut feature from Edinburgh-born writer-director Louis Paxton, who once worked as a teenage usher at the festival he is now opening. The film stars Domhnall Gleeson as a council worker sent to relocate a reclusive brother and sister, played by Gayle Rankin and Grant O'Rourke, who have lived off the grid on a remote Scottish island for decades. It won the NEXT Innovator Award at Sundance earlier this year. Festival director Paul Ridd said the film "dazzled, moved and amused us immensely" and represents "the kind of film that EIFF is all about," while Paxton called opening the festival with his first feature "a dream come true," according to the festival's own announcement.
The broader 2026 program includes 21 feature world premieres, among them Gregg Araki's "I Want Your Sex," starring Olivia Wilde, and Félix de Givry's directorial debut "Goodbye Cruel World." Kenneth Branagh is receiving the festival's inaugural Outstanding Contribution to Cinema Award, with a retrospective screening of his "Hamlet" among the honor's accompanying events. The festival closes Aug. 19 with Louise Lockwood's documentary "Bel," about the Kenyan-Scottish musician Beldina Odenyo.
The highest-profile draw may be the "Trainspotting" anniversary event at Leith Theatre, marking 30 years since Danny Boyle's film put Edinburgh's Leith neighborhood on the cultural map. The commemoration is set to include live commentary from cast and crew and DJ sets from novelist Irvine Welsh, who wrote the book the film was based on, and Darren Emerson, formerly of the electronic group Underworld. Ewan McGregor, who starred as Renton in the original film, is expected to take part, and the festival has also scheduled an in-conversation event with him separately, alongside similar sit-downs with actor Bruce Dern and producer Christine Vachon.
The lineup reflects a festival still rebuilding its footing after a 2022 financial collapse forced it to shut down for a year before relaunching under new management the following year. Four editions in, this year's slate — anchored by a hometown debut director and a homegrown film classic turning 30 — leans deliberately into Edinburgh's own cinematic history as much as the international premieres that fill out the rest of the week.
