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!

A fascinating documentary about the renovation A fascinating documentary about the renovation of a legendary cinema in Paris (Gaumont now Pathé Palace) led by architect Renzo Piano . Filmed over three years, it presents a microcosm of society, examining the realities of the work that goes into creating the magic of cinema, with all its roles and hierarchies. The project synthesises themes Swiss director Jean-Stéphane Bron has long explored, this time through the specific lens of a construction site. It follows the relationships among architects, owners, contractors, engineers, workers, and cleaning staff. Fascinated by the site, he sees it as a metaphor for a post Covid-19 society rebuilding itself.

A journey through the war memorials of the First A A journey through the war memorials of the First World War scattered throughout France. These statues, present in almost every town, embody the memory of the missing soldiers, often forgotten in modern daily life. By revisiting these works of stone and bronze, director Jérôme Prieur invites us to look beyond the simple monument, to perceive the personal and collective stories they represent.

“A French cinematic gem acclaimed by the critics of Le Masque” Radio France “Guess Who Is Calling is a genuine feel-good movie with its share of beautiful rather than good feelings; a story about friendship, creativity, love and loyalty.” Cineuropa Baptiste, a talented impressionist, can’t manage to make a living. One day, a novelist, Pierre, asks him to imitate his voice over the telephone, so Pierre can write in peace and quiet. Gradually, Baptiste takes over Pierre’s personality.

A boy from the far future accidentally falls back in time, where he meets a girl who tries to help him get back to his own era 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. Notes Duration: 89 minutes Certificate PG - mild threat, injury detail, violence, upsetting scenes, dangerous behaviour French with English subtitles The film will start promptly at 7pm without trailers The Grassmarket Community Project is a wheelchair accessible venue

Bursting with rock’n’roll energy, raw poetry, and a rebellious spirit, Don’t Cry Pretty Girls is a vibrant ode to counterculture and the youthquake generation championing freedom and self-expression. Juli (Jaroslava Schallerová) is sharp, striking, and restless – working in a hostel and engaged to Savanyú (Márk Zala), a factory worker who lives for wild nights out with his unruly friends. On the eve of their wedding, a concert draws them into the orbit of Géza (Lajos Balázsovits), a magnetic, free-spirited musician who awakens Juli’s longing for something more. Spirited away by Géza, Juli is swept into a world of possibility and rebellion – while Savanyú refuses to let her go without a fight. Don’t Cry Pretty Girls stands among Mészáros’s most adventurous works: dialogue is spare, music drives the action, and every scene pulses with youthful urgency.Hungarian with English subtitles. Bursting with rock’n’roll energy, raw poetry, and a rebellious spirit, Don’t Cry Pretty Girls is a vibrant ode to counterculture and the youthquake generation championing freedom and self-expression. Juli (Jaroslava Schallerová) is sharp, striking, and restless – working in a hostel and engaged to Savanyú (Márk Zala), a factory worker who lives for wild nights out with his unruly friends. On the eve of their wedding, a concert draws them into the orbit of Géza (Lajos Balázsovits), a magnetic, free-spirited musician who awakens Juli’s longing for something more. Spirited away by Géza, Juli is swept into a world of possibility and rebellion – while Savanyú refuses to let her go without a fight. Don’t Cry Pretty Girls stands among Mészáros’s most adventurous works: dialogue is spare, music drives the action, and every scene pulses with youthful urgency. 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.

Borscht Film present: The Queen and the Smokehouse / Bałtyk, dir. Iga Lis Poland, 2025, 77 min. UK/Scottish premiere Thursday, November 19th 18:45 p.m. (Doors: 6:30 p.m.) The Pyramid at Anderston PWYC (£6, £8, £10) https://www.ticketsource.com/borschtfc/t-oezvzyv 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.

The Peacock Community Cinema and the The Peacock Peacock Cinema and Dunfermline Creatives Network are delighted to introduce you to Jane Scheonbrun’s (We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma) stunning A24 film, I Saw the TV Glow. Recognising Trans-Awareness Week (13th – 19th November 2026), we have selected I Saw the TV Glow to screen alongside a wonderful, and optional, zine-making workshop. The zine-making workshop will take place before the film screening, which will commence at 7:30pm.

This collection of shorts explores what really lurks in the noise, with an award-winning French animation following a man forced to live with an idiot, an imaginative Belgian documentary that explores the use of Tantalum, and the chance to disconnect and wind down your busy mind, with a pair of meditative Estonian animations. Also screening reflective and beautifully-drawn Scottish animation, imaginative experimental animation from the USA that finds a strange beauty in ennui, another incredible experimental animation that manipulates film in extraordinary ways, an immersive and fascinating Scottish short doc and a fabulously grotesque, and award-winning, 2D animation from Bulgaria.

A one day festival showing films which explore our engagement with history and how this often blends with fantasy, accessed through costume and objects. The programme: Belief Is Not Without Pathos (2026) dir. Owen Vince Blanche (1971) dir. Walerian Borowczyk The Saragossa Manuscript (1965) dir. Wojciech Has An Investigation Into The Noseless Saint (2025) dir. Caitlin Hazell The Corselet (2026) dir. Wolfgang Dubieniec A Usage For New Weather (2026) dir. Owen Vince