Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) is delighted to announce EIFF Honorary Patron Robert Carlyle’s feature film directorial debut, THE LEGEND OF BARNEY THOMSON, will open the 69^th edition of the Festival on Wednesday 17 June, where it will receive its World Premiere.

Directed by and starring Robert Carlyle alongside Emma Thompson and Ray Winstone, the red carpet will be rolled out at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh, where the stars and filmmakers will attend the Opening Gala with the darkly humorous Glasgow-set thriller, kicking off the 12 day Festival.  Tickets for the film’s Public Screening on Wednesday 17 June at Festival Theatre go on sale on Wednesday 6 May.

Starring alongside Carlyle, Thompson and Winstone are Tom Courtenay, Ashley Jensen, Martin Compston, Brian Pettifer, Kevin Guthrie, James Cosmo, Stephen McCole and Samuel Robertson, with a screenplay by Colin McLaren and Richard Cowan.

Director Robert Carlyle said: “After a career-long association with EIFF it gives me enormous pleasure to have THE LEGEND OF BARNEY THOMSON chosen as Opening Night film. It really is such an honour for me to have my first feature as director premiered here in Edinburgh at the Festival that has played such a huge part in my life.”

Mark Adams, the new Artistic Director of EIFF said: “We are thrilled to be opening this year’s Festival with Robert Carlyle’s wonderful black comedy. It is a marvellously macabre and playful film, impressively directed and with a terrific cast. It is the perfect film to kick off what promises to be an exciting festival.”

Based on the book “The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson” by Douglas Lindsay, THE LEGEND OF BARNEY THOMSON is a dark comedy that tells the story of Barney (Carlyle), an awkward barber who inadvertently stumbles into serial murder, with both absurd and macabre consequences. Complicating matters further, Barney’s mother Cemolina (Thompson) has a secret of her own, causing a bloody and comedic chain of events. While Barney clumsily tries to cover his and his mother’s tracks, the local police inspector Holdall (Winstone) fights his own battles within his inept homicide department as he tries to solve the crime of the century. A black comedy of errors unfolds as the police try to capture the murderer at large.

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