Today’s line ups is a great opener for the festival with a great deal to offer from classic horror (though am not sure how well that’s going to play int he early afternoon) and some great homegrown tallent from Coming Up.

Old boxers are a sad bunch. Chances are they’ve spent their prize money, or been diddled out of it by unscrupulous financiers. When once they were neat and lean, fast on their feet and fodder for ringside groupies, now they are short, fat and unrecognised.

Director Annette K Olesen and screenwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson return to Berlin six years after they won the Blue Angel Award for the Best European Film with Minor Mishaps with a very different film, Little Soldier. There’s no trace of Dogme influence in this traditionally-shot, Zentropa-produced drama about a woman who returns home to Denmark after a stint as a soldier in Iraq and a Nigerian call girl who works for her father.

This year marks the 64th year of the Edinburgh International Film Festival making it the UK’s longest continuously running film festival.