EDINBURGH, Scotland — Iranian exile Abdolreza Kahani’s “Mortician” took top honors at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival, taking the Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence on Tuesday night. 

The film, shot in Canada on an iPhone, is charged with emotion and harsh consequences of trying to live on one’s own terms. “I was once banned from making films in my own country. So I had to do something. This film isn’t a protest on paper. It’s something real. Physical. A way to breathe again.” the director told Variety. The £50,000 ($67,300) prize, not small for anyone, may be an entire feature budget for Kahani.

The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence went to Joanna Vymeris’s “Mother Goose.” Vymeris, who has produced a slate of shorts and worked with Sally Potter at Adventure Pictures, adds the award to her growing résumé.

“These past seven days are testament to our collective belief in the power of film to provoke, to stimulate and to inspire empathy. “ said EIFF director Paul Ridd, “Our two competition winners showcase outstanding work from their respective filmmakers and teams, proving that with formal dexterity, humanity and grace, cinema is alive and kicking.“ 

In all its August pomp, the Edinburgh International Film Festival capitalized on its place within the world’s largest cultural gathering. With the TV Festival spilling out just behind it, footfall built across the week, giving the event a distinctly citywide feel.

Mother Goose

Modest in scale but ambitious in scope, this year’s EIFF competition was made up entirely of world premieres, from a Michael Madsen swansong in “Concessions” to “Blue Film” described by Variety’s Guy Lodge as “a provocative chamber piece.” Many out-of-competition titles had also never screened before with “Sorry, Baby” continuing its buzz, and “Islands” creating some of its own with a pickup announced this week.

For the stamina-blessed, Midnight Madness, which saw a string of late shows starting with Ben Wheatley’s latest “Bulk”, just reviewed by Variety’s Guy Lodge,  offered the chance to grab only a brief sleep before films began again the next morning.

Industry was focused on panels held behind closed doors for the press, legends Q&A’s, and targeted panels on sectors such as Animation and the Creator Economy.

Following, some takeaways from Edinburgh:

Scottish Animation Eyes a Bespoke Funding Model

At EIFF’s Animation in Scotland panel, a central question emerged: Screen Scotland’s new £1.2 million ($1.62 million) Talent Builder scheme, unveiled this year to boost shorts, excludes animation. Panelists argued that animation, a production method rather than a genre, demands longer timelines and higher costs than live action.

Screen Scotland’s David Smith confirmed work is underway with Animation Scotland to design a dedicated scheme, likely to launch in 2026. Until then, support flows through the Film and Broadcast funds (up to £500,000 per project) and the Production Growth Fund, which helped deliver “Scrooge: A Christmas Carol” and Marvel’s “Eyes of Wakanda” out of Scotland. Still, the absence of an animation-specific ladder for emerging auteurs leaves the sector reliant on service work and international contracts, with shorts like Eyebolls’ “Legend of Luna” and “The Rejects” pointing to the potential of local IP if new routes of support can be found.

Tech Adoption and Global Reach Power Momentum

If funding lags, the industry’s technical and creative momentum is undeniable. Studios such as Wild Child have built pipelines around Unreal Engine, allowing them to scale from a five-person startup in 2020 to series production at a much larger scale, while cutting rendering costs. Others are integrating Blender, USD workflows and Moho rigging to streamline 2D-to-3D processes, lowering barriers for small teams. AI loomed large, with veterans framing it as a co-pilot in concept design while Wild Child’s Ron Henry cited a survey of 100 industry professionals showing younger entrants voiced the most unease. Even so, consensus stressed that creativity, not automation, remains the industry’s currency.

The mood was summed up by Richard Scott, the co-founder of Axis Studios who now consults under Utility Vehicle: Scotland now has “20-plus years of experience, talent, and infrastructure — the next 20 will decide whether that tips into a truly global hub,” he said.

Fringe Benefits

Running EIFF in August alongside the Edinburgh Fringe brought both rewards and headaches. Delegates noted the energy was palpable — a city teeming with theater, comedy, street performance and packed houses lent the film festival a buzz that few midsize events can replicate. At the same time, the sheer crush of visitors meant sky-high hotel rates, restaurants booked out weeks in advance and a scramble for space across the city. Yet many industry guests seemed to embrace the trade-off, relishing a festival embedded in a cultural maelstrom rather than the solitary centerpiece. It seems like a film festival that thrives precisely because it isn’t the only show in town.

Some Films Just Mean More

Abdolreza Kahani’s winner “Mortician,” picked up by Visit Films, leaves as one of the buzziest titles partly through a post-premiere Q&A that carried unusual emotional weight at EIFF. Kahani described editing the entire film on a tiny screen only seeing it projected for the first time in Edinburgh. Lead actor Nima Sandar, also the star of Kahani’s “A Shrine,” which played last year’s festival, spoke movingly about Kahani elevating his craft. Co-star Gola, a London-based Iranian singer in exile, said she channelled her own experience of censorship and displacement into the role, linking the film’s themes to the real-life suicide of journalist Keyvan Samimi in Tehran.

Formally, Kahani’s choice to keep the iPhone camera static was a deliberate protest: “When people in the world are not moving, when they stay silent, why should the camera move?” he explained. For the director and his collaborators, “Mortician” was more than a festival premiere — it was a vehicle to speak for silenced artists and women in Iran, and a reminder, as Gola put it, that “art and film can awaken people.” Kahani’s trickster like humor broke through in his final remark toward the attentive crowd “Our film is not as good as what you think.” They left to laughter and tears.

Edinburgh’s Retrospective Muscle

If EIFF’s competition underlined discovery, its retrospectives confirmed the enduring pull of cinema history. Nowhere was that clearer than in a sold-out Festival Theatre, where Thelma Schoonmaker reflected on the legacy of her late husband Michael Powell. “He was always ahead of his time, and that frightened people.” she recalled.

The backward glance stretched wide. Ken Loach, Paul Laverty and Rebecca O’Brien joined Variety’s Guy Lodge in conversation, while Loach’s Palme d’Or winner “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” screened separately in the retrospective lineup. Andrea Arnold likewise discussed her career, paired with a revival of her debut “Red Road.” Morning audiences packed into screenings of the original six James Bond films, under the Sacred Bonds banner, while Budd Boetticher’s Ranown Cycle westerns drew praise for their compact craft.

Also on offer were anniversary outings of “Restless Natives,” Nicolas Roeg’s “Bad Timing” and David Hayman’s “Silent Scream.” Together, they confirmed that EIFF’s retrospective program is no mere sidebar but a defining draw — part cinephile celebration, part living history, framing the conversation about what boldness in cinema has meant, and what it still could mean.

Insight Behind Closed Doors

A curiosity of this year’s industry strand was the Unified Series, which gathered some of the sector’s most influential figures: Rose Garnett, Eva Yates, Adele Romanski, David Hinojosa and Farhana Bhula, plus a panel on international co-productions. With speakers spanning U.K. public funders to Oscar-nominated producers, the sessions promised real weight.

They were, however, closed to press. The off-limits format may have encouraged participants to be more candid than in a public forum. Either way, the series stood apart, pitched somewhere between showcase and private workshop, leaving this reporter on the other side of the door to wonder what wisdom was shared.