Borges and Me Premieres at Edinburgh International Film Festival

Marc Turtletaub’s road-movie Borges and Me opens the 79th Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) in an out-of-competition slot this weekend. The film adapts Jay Parini’s memoir *Borges and Me: An Encounter* and follows a 1971 graduate student from the University of St Andrews on a Highland journey with the blind Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.

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Parini’s memoir recounts his real-life road trip with Borges through the Scottish Highlands, a narrative that the film expands with fictionalized episodes—such as a rowboat trip on Loch Ness and a spontaneous song-writing session on set. The story blends literary homage with the era’s anti-war sentiment, referencing Borges’s admiration for Bob Dylan and his reflections on the Vietnam conflict.

The Guardian

• Marc Turtletaub – veteran director-producer, returning to feature filmmaking.

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• Oren Moverman – screenwriter, longtime collaborator of Turtletaub.

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• Jay Parini – author of the source memoir, present on set daily.

The Guardian

• Fionn Whitehead – plays the young graduate student, previously lead in *Dunkirk*.

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• Luis Gnecco – Chilean actor portraying Borges, noted for his preparation, including learning Anglo-Saxon for a line.

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• Alan Cumming, Freya Mavor, Peter Mullan, John Gordon Sinclair, Morven Christie, Stuart Bowman – Scottish cast members.

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The film is a co-production among the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom and the United States. Turtletaub scouted 61 Scottish locations by driving the exact route described in Parini’s book before securing rights. He highlighted the “great line producer” and “best crew in Scotland” as pivotal to the production’s scale, noting that such large-scale road movies are rare in the UK. Gnecco’s preparation included reviewing all existing material on Borges and watching live interviews, while Parini contributed lyrics on the spot for a scene featuring Mavor’s singing.

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EIFF’s 2026 edition runs in mid-August, featuring 38 new features, 21 world premieres and a £50,000 audience-voted Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence. The festival’s reboot aims to position Edinburgh as the UK’s “home of independent cinema,” with expanded industry programming and the inaugural Variety Lounge amplifying international exposure.

Variety Magazine

Marc Turtletaub explained that he discovered Parini’s memoir in a Hawaiian bookstore and “fell in love” with the story, prompting him to pursue the adaptation. He described the production as “a road movie” that required on-the-ground scouting to capture the book’s geography. Turtletaub also noted that Parini, who “loves filmmaking,” was present for daily shoots and praised the screenplay as “a masterclass in adaptation.”

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• “Speak up – I am blind!” — Jay Parini, of american author

The Guardian

• “Heading into the third edition of our revamped, reimagined and reinvigorated Edinburgh International Film Festival feels like hitting a stride we have been working towards since the start of 2024,” — Paul Ridd, festival director

Variety Magazine

Following its opening night, *Borges and Me* will continue its run at the festival, offering audiences a blend of literary history and Scottish scenery before moving toward broader distribution.

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