Film Edinburgh Autumn Round-Up

Production recently wrapped on two large budget Hollywood blockbusters. The ninth instalment in the Fast & Furious series, the 7th highest-grossing film franchise of all time, filmed across the city for 28 days. Stars Vin Diesel, Nathalie Emmanuel, Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson were seen in the city filming action sequences for Fast & Furious 9 which is due to be released in May 2020.

Also set to be released in May 2020 is Netflix’s Will Ferrell comedy, Eurovision which spent a week in the capital during October. Ferrell and Rachel McAdams filmed scenes in the city centre as well as at Newhaven Lighthouse, while co-star Pierce Brosnan was also spotted in the city.

The fishing village of St Abbs, seen as New Asgard in Avengers: Endgame, was the backdrop for a new music video from pop superstar Harry Styles in August, with additional locations in the village of Cockenzie. Edinburgh production company, Filming Scotland, serviced an episode of US’s most watched television gameshow, Wheel of Fortune in the city during September. The show reaches an average of 27 million weekly viewers.

Following on from the Constructing Places Symposium at the University of Glasgow, Head of Film Edinburgh, Rosie Ellison participated in a panel discussion on screen tourism and related issues in film production at the Hamburg Film Festival. Using both Hamburg and Edinburgh as examples, the panel focused on urban filming locations and film production, location marketing, the importance of place for on-screen authenticity and the potential of international collaborations.

Our Ladies, Michael Caton-Jones adaptation of Alan Warner’s coming-of-age novel, The Sopranos, had its world premiere at this year’s BFI London Film Festival. Agnieszka Holland’s drama Mr. Jones also had its first UK screening at the same festival.

Singer-Songwriter Emeli Sandé took to the streets of Edinburgh to find the country’s best buskers to take part in Emeli Sandé’s Street Symphony on BBC Scotland. While rapper and social commentator Darren McGarvey (AKA Loki), investigated the rise of poverty and inequality in Scotland through the thought-provoking BBC Scotland series, Darren McGarvey’s Scotland.

Finally, Neil Forsyth’s Guilt began screening on BBC Scotland and BBC Two. The four part, darkly comic Edinburgh set drama stars Jamie Sives and Mark Bonnar as two brothers who accidentally kill an old man and attempt to cover it up.