How to Build A Girl

Director: Coky Giedroyc

Year: 2000

The second feature from Stella Does Tricks director Coky Giedroyc, Women Talking Dirty charts the ups and downs in the relationship between two friends in Edinburgh: headstrong single mother Cora (Helena Bonham Carter) and shy but successful cartoonist Ellen (Gina McKee) who is struggling to support her no-good gambling husband. As they gamely deal with the vicissitudes of life, their friendship is tested but ultimately proves too strong to crumble. The film is based on the popular novel by Scottish author Isla Dewar, published in 1996, and marks the debut production from Elton John's Rocket Pictures, which acquired the rights to the novel and then brought on board Giedroyc on the strength of her previous film. Rocket then teamed up with Jean Doumanian, the New York-based producer best known for her collaborations with Woody Allen, in an Anglo-American co-production. The work-in-progress print was screened at last year's Toronto Film Festival, since when the film has been back into the cutting rooms for fine-tuning. It has just been completed. Meanwhile, Rocket Pictures is developing a number of features across the genres and budget ranges, including the partly-animated Just So series, in co-production with the Walt Disney Co, and So I Am Glad, an adaptation of another Scottish novel, this time by AL Kennedy, which will be co-produced and star husband and wife team Ed Harris and Amy Madigan.

Director: Asa Gartland

Year: 2026

The Public have just played the best gig of their lives, and for the first time, someone in a suit is interested. It feels like the moment they have been waiting for, but celebrations quickly descend into chaos. Andy, the band's quiet and devoted guitarist, watches as his dream begins to dissolve around him. A chain reaction is set in motion as secrets are exposed, loyalties shift, and buried tensions explode to the surface. As the night spirals further out of control, the frontman, Ted, is pulled toward a future that could take him away for good. Andy becomes desperate to save Ted from himself and hold everything together, even as it becomes clear that some things will never be the same.

Director: Lawrence Fowler

Year: 2026

Following a horrific crime committed when they were young, a group of four friends think it will remain a secret forever until they discover and play a vintage board game. When the game unwittingly summons the grotesque clown demon ‘Grin’, it soon becomes clear the demon targets those who have committed terrible sins. Official selection FrightFest 2026