We’re excited to announce our in-competition programme for our 16th edition! The 2026 ESFF opens on Friday 6th November Filmhouse Edinburgh and continues until 21st November at the Filmhouse and Summerhall. FULL PROGRAMME With 7 nights of in competition short films competing for our 2026 awards, ranging from Chinese neo-noir to Finnish stop motion and from Kurdish documentary to Australian horror!

With the Tour de France due to start off from Lucio, Lucio, 26, suffers from dystonia, a condition that causes speech and movement disorders. However, he has embarked on a crazy challenge: to walk and cycle around France in less than 99 days. Accompanied by his mother, he will discover France, his country that he only knows through television, and prove that with enough determination, you can make your dreams come true.

This Autumn, Glasgow Women's Library is delighted to present Collections On Camera: a series of film screenings and activities celebrating feminist cinema related to our collections. From much-beloved classics of DIY filmmaking to captivating documentaries, join us to celebrate women’s stories of joy and resilience. Archival documentary Sisters with Transistors, directed by Lisa Rovner, traces the forgotten history of women’s role in the rise of electronic music. Featuring pioneers such as Clara Rockwell and Laurie Spiegel, the film reveals how musical experimentation can give way to social liberation. Following the screening, join us for a panel discussion with Arusa Qureshi, music journalist and programmer, and Suzi Cook, GLOSS (Glasgow Library of Synthesized Sound) Co-Founder and one-half of Free Love. The film will be screened with subtitles and the panel discussion will be live captioned. Supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, awarding funding on behalf of Screen Scotland and the BFI National Lottery.

Exploring the challenges of modern family Exploring the challenges of modern family structures, the film follows a single father, a feminist bookshop owner, and a child seeking a place to belong as they navigate love, desires, and redefining what it means to be a family. By revealing their aspirations, their fears, their choices, writer/director Carine Tardieu depicts different ways in which humans create families. Based on the novel L’Intimité by Alice Ferney, the title scooped a César for best film.

On the evening of 24 December, somewhere in a On the evening of 24 December, somewhere in a drab suburb, young Abdou –a dreamy pizza delivery boy –meets the real Santa Claus, whose name is Marcel. The old man is worn out and weary, and a silly scooter accident threatens to derail his delivery run. Thanks to Abdou, who enlists the help of a few eccentric characters from the neighbourhood, the deliveries go ahead after all. Amidst the chaotic mayhem, Christmas is saved through music and song!

As cities around the world modernise, enclosing As cities around the world modernise, enclosing open-air dumps and outlawing waste-picking have become key strategies of urban reform. The Waste Commons explores the dramatic transformations surrounding the impending closure of Dakar’s city waste dump in Senegal and the lives that hang in the balance. The film follows charismatic Zidane, trailblazing Adja, and their community of waste pickers as they defend their carefully crafted worlds and their right to waste.

Agnès Varda’s tender evocation of the childhood Jacques Demy is a wonder-filled portrait of the artist as a young man and an enchanting ode to the magic of cinema. Shot in Demy’s hometown of Nantes (including the house he grew up in), this imaginative blend of narrative and documentary traces his coming of age as he finds escape from the tumult of the Second World War in puppet shows, fairy tales, opera, and, above all, movies – the formative experiences that would fuel his vivid Technicolor imagination and find unforgettable expression in his exuberant New Wave masterworks.

Part of I Like It Here: A New Season Celebrating Community, Human Connection and Love, a series of 8 screenings presented by Grassmarket Community Picturehouse and the Edinburgh Film Guild. Bill Forsyth's Local Hero is a film that needs little introduction. It is the ultimate celebration of small town, country life, as Peter Riegert's Mac can't help but be charmed by the small highlands town he is sent to on a work mission from America. Peter Capaldi, Burrt Lancaster, Jenny Seagrove and Denis Lawson round out a wonderful ensemble. Watch and you too will be unable to resist a move to the highlands! Tickets £3/£5/£7 on a sliding scale, with free entry for Grassmarket Community Project Members, open door meal attendees, and anyone else in need of a free ticket. Please select the ticket price that feels right to you; all income from tickets will be directly used to support the continued running of our cinema screenings. Supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, awarding funding on behalf of Screen Scotland and the BFI National Lottery. Notes Duration: 111 minutes Certificate 12A - implied strong language, moderate sex references The film will screen with English descriptive subtitles, transcribing both dialogue and key audio information from the film. The screening will start promptly at 2pm without trailers The Grassmarket Community Project is a wheelchair accessible venue

When she released this trailblazing debut feature - one of the first feature-length films directed by a woman in Hungary - Marta Mészáros was already a known figure, with over 30 acclaimed short films under her belt in both fiction and documentary. The Girl establishes the key themes that would come to define Mészáros’s work: complex family relationships(especially between a child and parent), tensions between traditional rural and urban spaces, and the search for a grounded existence in an ever-changing world. The film introduces Mészáros’s first female lead Erzsi, portrayed by singer Kati Kovács, who embodies the spirit of a modern, strong-willed woman. Raised in a state orphanage in Budapest and working in a factory, Erzsi decides to travel to the countryside to meet her birth mother. On her journey of self-discovery she encounters a world at odds with her independence. Hungarian with English subtitles. Screening as part of the Glasgow Film Theatre CineMasters: Marta Mészáros season, urated by Invisible Women in collaboration with curator Maggi Hurt.

Film Screening - Edinburgh - The Queen and the Smokehouse / Bałtyk, dir. Iga Lis Out Of The Blue Arts & Education Trust, Edinburgh, EH6 8RG Sunday 15th November 2026 The Queen and the Smokehouse / Bałtyk, dir. Iga Lis present: The Queen and the Smokehouse / Bałtyk, dir. Iga Lis Poland, 2025, 77 min. Scottish premiere Sunday, November 15th 7:00 p.m. (Doors: 6:45 p.m.) Out of the Blue Drill Hall, Edinburgh 30–38 Dalmeny St, EH6 8RG PWYC (£6, £8, £10) Language: Polish with English subtitles Rating: 15+ Tickets: With a prerecorded introduction from film critic and film scholar Karolina Kosińska. The Queen and the Smokehouse is a cinematic journey to the Polish Baltic coast, where the wind, salt and smoke shape everyday life. The film opened the 65th Krakow Film Festival, transporting audiences into the world of Miecia, the legendary figure behind Łeba’s iconic seaside smokehouse. For forty years she has built a place defined not only by craft, but by character. Her fish, her humour and her presence have become part of the town’s folklore, remembered long after the holiday crowds return home. The film portrays the last pockets of authenticity in places increasingly transformed by tourism. It reflects on disappearing traditions, the passage of time and the strength of women who build their lives around ambition and care for others. The Queen and the Smokehouse is an intimate, vivid portrait of resilience, humour and the fragile moment between what has been and what might still come. The Baltic coast becomes a character of its own: its rhythms, its stubborn charm, its people. The film captures a passing era, where independent seaside smokehouses and spirited female entrepreneurs are slowly giving way to uniform corporate competition. Iga Lis’s debut documentary has received significant acclaim, including an ORŁY Polish Film Awards (known as Polish Oscars) nomination for Discovery of the Year, a triumphant Opening Night premiere at Krakow Film Festival, the Jantar Award for Best Cinematography at Młodzi i Film, and the Audience Award at Sopot Film Festival’s DOK.PL Competition. The screening is enriched by a programme of short films presented in collaboration with Scottish Documentary Institute, including Community Theatre, dir. L. Baillie nominated for this year’s BAFTA Awards. Presented by Borscht Film, in collaboration with Scottish Documentary Institute. Borscht Film - Polish Film in Scotland is a Scotland‑based project dedicated to showcasing bold, imaginative cinema from Poland, with a focus on contemporary film, documentary, emerging voices, Polish classics, and films for young audiences. All screenings are presented with English subtitles. Supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, funded by Screen Scotland and National Lottery funding from the BFI. Borscht Film Polish Cinema Season 2026/27 is supported by the Screen Scotland National Lottery Film Festival & Screening Programme Fund and by the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Edinburgh.