The Edinburgh international film festival has announced the opening film for its 2023 edition, months after the shock news that the long-running event’s existence was in doubt after its organisers, Centre for the Moving Image (CMI), shut down abruptly in October and called in administrators.
The festival’s high-profile opening gala slot has been handed to Silent Roar, the debut feature from director Johnny Barrington, produced by The Inbetweeners Movie’s Christopher Young. Described by the festival as “a teenage tale of surfing, sex and hellfire”, Silent Roar was filmed on the remote community of Uig, on Lewis in Scotland’s Western Isles and stars Louis McCartney and Ella Lily Hyland.
The announcement marks a remarkable turnaround for the festival, which appeared doomed after CMI’s collapse, which simultaneously forced the closure of the Filmhouse cinemas in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. However, with the help of the wider Edinburgh international festival, the film festival was able to re-organise itself on a smaller scale with a “compact selection of films”. The film festival will also take place in August at the same time as Edinburgh’s theatre, comedy and music festivals, having shifted to June in 2008.
However, the fate of the celebrated Filmhouse cinema in Edinburgh, which for decades had acted as the festival’s HQ, is still far from clear. Reports emerged in April that the site, a former church in the city’s Lothian Road, had been sold for £2.65m, with the buyers rumoured to be pub operators Caledonian Heritable. A campaign is now under way to try to ensure the building remains a cinema, with discussions involving interested parties including Edinburgh Council and Creative Scotland.
• The Edinburgh film festival is due to announce its full programme on 6 July and runs from 18 to 23 August.
