Spirit of discovery

THE Scotsman's film critic ALISTAIR HARKNESS offers his pick of the EIFF's 2008 programme.

WHEN THE ANNOUNCEMENT was made that the Edinburgh International Film Festival would be moving to June in 2008, it was greeted with both enthusiasm and scepticism. The official line was that the new dates would give the festival a chance to grow and develop without the other August festivals, while doubters reckoned it would lose out for precisely the same reason.

As someone who has covered the last seven film festivals, I can't see how the move away from the Fringe would damage it. Sure, there might have been some audience overlap, but as the emergence of film festivals around the world has proved, such events thrive on their own merits. Just look at the Glasgow Film Festival in February. It's only been going for four years and is now the third biggest film festival in Britain. The notion, then, that the EIFF, as one of the oldest events in the world, won't be able to stand on its own two feet seems unnecessarily defeatist.

All that really matters are the films and, on paper, the line-up unveiled by artistic director Hannah McGill earlier this week reflects a determined effort to position Edinburgh more aggressively as a festival of discovery than a celebration of established talent. The programme has fewer high profile films than usual, while those from above-the-title directors, or big name stars, appear to reflect an edgier, leftfield sensibility. Somers Town, for instance, sees recent Bafta-winner Shane Meadows return with an even smaller film than This is England: a black-and-white, DV-shot comedy-drama about the friendship between a Polish immigrant teenager and northern runaway in London. Then there's the opening night gala, The Edge of Love. It may have a red carpet-friendly cast in Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller, but it's also an artistically daring period drama that allows both actresses to do their strongest work in a film full of astonishing and appropriately poetic visuals (it's about the complicated love life of Dylan Thomas, after all). Even closing night gala Faintheart – the premise of which made my own heart sink when I read it – has an interesting background that seems plugged in to the way films are now funded, made and viewed: a British comedy set in the world of battle re-enactments revolving around a loser trying to win back his wife, it's the product of a competition run by MySpace to discover and support emerging talent.

All this is a bold, positive and necessary move. For years the film festivals of Edinburgh and London (at the end of October) competed for the spoils of Cannes, with London increasingly emerging victorious, partly due to having more money and partly because its timing suits the studios showcasing their Oscar contenders.

Edinburgh's new dates mean its programme will already be finalised by the time the Cannes line-up is even announced, ensuring that Sundance – with its emphasis on emerging talent – is likely to be its primary influence.

In this spirit, then, there's plenty to look forward to. Among this year's biggest Sundance talking points, many are receiving their premieres in Edinburgh. German film The Wave, which revolves around a dangerous high school experiment to explore the roots of fascism, sounds like the most provocative while the Ben Kingsley-starring, audience award-winning The Wackness (about a hip-hop-loving kid who trades dope with his shrink for therapy) sounds the most fun. The fantastically titled Donkey Punch – it's a sex reference, apparently – was also a late night favourite at Sundance, with first-time British writer-director Oliver Blackburn receiving good notices for his slick and inventive visual style.

Another British film in a Gala slot is A Complete History of My Sexual Failures, which promises plenty of laughs as a shambling, self-styled loser by the name of Chris Waitt – who is also an accomplished filmmaker and sometime actor (he was in Hot Fuzz) – documents his less-than-successful love life by turning the camera on himself to find out where he's been going wrong with women.

Edinburgh isn't an industry event in the way that Sundance is; distributors don't attend with open chequebooks to make headline-grabbing deals. But it sometimes acts as a good platform. Last year's festival favourite, the hip and funny In Search of a Midnight Kiss, picked up a UK distributor soon after sold-out Edinburgh performances and strong critical notices (you can see it in cinemas next month). Anyone seeking a similar fix this year should check out shoestring American indies Wellness and the bluntly titled Good Dick, or perhaps the artful, near silent French-Spanish co-production In the City of Sylvia.

In keeping with this approach, the inaugural cult film strand, Under the Radar, promises to showcase some new, genuinely off-the-wall films in an effort to nurture an appreciation of the spirit of old-school midnight movie-making. The pioneering music video strand, Mirrorball, will be branching out into live events with two multi-media gigs: one featuring the acclaimed UK band British Sea Power, the other featuring a collective of DJs and video artists.

Of course, there are still the kinds of movies you'd expect to find in any Edinburgh line up. Flying the local-interest flag are Stone of Destiny and Death-defying Acts. The former is the Robert Carlyle-starring film about the four Scottish students who stole back the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1950; the latter is about Harry Houdini, stars Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and is partially set in Edinburgh. There are also new festival-friendly films from the likes of The Station Agent director Thomas McCarthy (The Visitor) and Wayne Wang (returning after a dull Hollywood career with A Thousand Years of Good Prayer and Princess of Nebraska), as well as high profile documentaries from veterans such as Errol Morris (Standard Operating Procedure) and Werner Herzog (Encounters at the End of the World). Then there's WALL-E, the festival's one guaranteed blockbuster. Pixar's latest may be an unashamedly populist selection, but film festivals are good places to evaluate how mainstream films can sometimes blur the line between art and commerce.

Nevertheless, it's the number of chances McGill seems to be taking with the rest of the programme that initially impresses and if audiences prove similarly adventurous, and the films deliver, it won't be long before August is a distant memory.