Renee Zellweger film to premiere at Edinburgh Film Festival

She’s one of the biggest names in Hollywood, with one of the smallest films in this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival programme.

Renee Zellweger’s first release as a filmmaker, “They”, is an animated short which will receive its world premiere in Scotland’s capital.

The nine-minute film will be screened as part of a programme of animation shorts at Cameo, Filmhouse and Vue cinemas in August.

The programme describes it as a hero’s plot for peace that backfires with drastic consequences.

The festival’s director and chief executive Paul Ridd said the festival was approached by Zellweger’s producer at an early stage and that they “fell in love” with the film.

“It’s such an honour to have her first film premiere with us, and a world premiere too,” he said.

“It’s a beautiful animation and so interesting for someone so iconic for her film roles, turning her hand to filmmaking.”

The festival director said he was unable to confirm if Zellweger would attend the premiere but said an announcement about guests would be made in the coming weeks.

This is the second festival under Mr Ridd, who relaunched it last year after a difficult period.

“It has been an honour to bring this festival back to life,” he said.

The festival, along with the Belmont in Aberdeen and Filmhouse in Edinburgh, was forced to close in October 2022 after parent company CIMI went into administration.

The Edinburgh International Festival, which has run alongside the film festival since 1947, helped it stage a small number of events in 2023.

Last year saw the event extended to a week and although this year’s festival will not run any longer, it will branch out into a number of new venues, including the Hawthornden Theatre in the National Gallery of Scotland and the newly reopened Filmhouse.

The festival’s chairman Andrew Macdonald will also take to the stage for an in-conversation event with his filmmaker brother Kevin Macdonald.

The 78th programme includes films from Scotland, Ireland, Croatia, Australia and Brazil.

As previously announced, it will open with the black comedy Sorry Baby and close with a new documentary about Irvine Welsh, Reality is Not Enough.

Ten of the films will compete for the £50,000 Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, which is decided by an audience vote and announced at the end of the festival.

The winner of last year’s award, The Ceremony, will be released in cinemas in August.

Connery, the festival’s former patron, also features on-screen in a season of films called Sacred Bonds which will include 4K restorations of Dr No and From Russia with Love.

The festival will also stage the world premiere of Ben Wheatley’s new film Bulk and screen The Toxic Avenger, which stars Peter Dinklage and Elijah Wood.