Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

The Edinburgh International Film Festival has unveiled its 2016 programme. As well as the regular science fiction and fantasy driven Night Moves strand, this year’s event includes Pow!, a focus on superhero movies, and boasts Yoga Hosers director (and potential Buckaroo Banzai television showrunner) Kevin Smith among the guests.

Pow! Live Action Comic Strip Adaptations: The First Generation presents a colourful retrospective journey through various genres, tracing the evolution of the live comic strip adaptation in cinema. Bringing together cult titles from across the world, films include: Roger Vadim’s Barbarella; Leslie H Martinson’s Batman: The Movie; Mario Bava’s Danger Diabolik; Robert Altman’s Popeye; and two rarely screened Japanese classics based on world famous Manga comic strips, Kenji Misumi’s Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance and Junya Sato’s Golgo 13.

Night Moves, the Festival’s annual look at the chilling, bloody side of cinema features late night showings of a mixture of scream-inducing horror, fantasy adventure, and unashamedly brash genre-fare. Screenings include:

• The World Premiere of Nirpal Bhogal’s homegrown horror First Born
• European Premiere of horror anthology Holidays, featuring offerings from some of the genre’s finest minds, including In Person participant Kevin Smith
• UK-first showings of swords and skis epic The Last King from Nils Gaup
• Anna Biller’s sexploitation tribute The Love Witch
• Wu Ershan’s Chinese blockbuster Mojin: The Lost Legend
• Steve Barker’s trip to a Zombie Safari Park The Rezort
• Sion Sono’s Japanese sex-comedy The Virgin Psychics
• A hypnotic screening of the rarely-seen 1973 Japanese cult anime Belladonna of Sadness from Eiichi Yamamoto, co-presented by EIFF and Scotland Loves Anim

Other films featured in the Festival that may be of interest to fans of science fiction, fantasy and horror include:

• The UK Premiere of the highly-anticipated Disney-Pixar animation Finding Dory
• The UK Premiere of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial with John Williams’ iconic score performed live by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra
• The World Premiere of the newly-restored 4K version of the Scottish classic Highlander, celebrating its 30th anniversary with star Clancy Brown in attendance
• Agyness Deyn-led complex dystopian thriller The White King from Alex Helfrecht and Jörg Tittel.
• Indie auteur Kevin Smith, creator of cult classics Clerks and Dogma will also be taking to the stage alongside the star of his latest comedy Yoga Hosers, Harley Quinn Smith
• Yeon Sang-ho’s vision of zombie apocalypse Seoul Station
• Yoga Hosers, the latest madcap adventure from Kevin Smith
• World Premiere of Balazs Juszt’s supernatural thriller The Man Who Was Thursday

For the full programme, visit the EIFF web site.