Angelina Jolie is set to appear at Edinburgh's annual film festival next month.
Organisers of the festival, which launched its 61st programme yesterday, are optimistic the actress will grace the red carpet of the festival to promote her new film, A Mighty Heart.
Hannah McGill, the new artistic director of the festival, and former film critic of The Herald, said that A Mighty Heart, which has its UK premiere at the festival and is described as containing a career-defining performance by Jolie, was "highly topical and is sure to provoke debate".
In the film, directed by Michael Winterbottom, Jolie plays Mariane Pearl, the wife of the Wall Street Journal writer Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and executed by Islamic extremists.
The appearance of Jolie - her first in Scotland - would add to a cast of actors and directors appearing at the festival set to include John Waters, Stephen Frears, Mike Leigh, Samantha Morton, Chris Cooper, Julie Delpy, Bob Hoskins, Stellan Skarsgård and Tilda Swinton, who is also the festival's new patron.
Delpy's movie, Two Days in Paris, written and directed by the French star and featuring her real-life parents as her fictional parents, has been chosen as the gala movie to close the festival.
Other highlights of the programme include Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park and the US box-office hit Knocked Up. Also to be screened is Control - Anton Corbijn's film about the late Ian Curtis, Joy Division's lead singer.
The new digitally animated movie from Pixar, Ratatouille, will be shown, as will Hallam Foe, the Edinburgh-shot drama starring Jamie Bell and Sophia Myles which has been chosen to open this year's festival.
Ms McGill said the festival was in talks with Ms Jolie and added: "I am hoping Angelina Jolie will be able to make it.
"A Mighty Heart is a great film. It could not be more topical and we are excited to have it here.
"We were lucky with Hallam Foe, it was the right film at the right time, and it is made in Edinburgh by an old friend of mine director David McKenzie. It is the perfect film to open the festival. It is delightful but it has a bit of an edge."
Ms Myles, who attended the launch of the festival programme yesterday, said: "Hallam Foe is perfect for the opening of the film festival, because David has filmed the city so beautifully, it really is the star of the film."
In total, the festival will showcase 120 films from 31 countries, with 25 world premieres and 68 UK premieres.
The festival's theme of the written word has resulted in joint events with the National Theatre of Scotland, the Book Festival, the main Edinburgh International Festival and the Traverse Theatre, and onstage talks with screenwriters Christopher Hampton, William Nicholson, Paul Laverty and Irvine Welsh.
This year's retrospective section is dedicated to another screenwriter - Anita Loos, a writer from the golden age of Hollywood.
Ms McGill said that, in her first year in charge of the festival, there were no films she had tried to attract to Edinburgh but failed.
"Genuinely there were no real problems," she said. "Everyone I spoke to understood the festival and the programme came together much easier than I expected.
"There is an appreciation that this is a festival for its audience, it is not a big film industry event like Cannes. We can do things here that other festivals cannot.
"It is a festival where the audience can get to see films they may not otherwise be able to, and to see the writers and directors and actors for themselves."
The festival this year is highlighting archive films, including a remastered print of the cult German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz, and three remastered Shakespeare adaptations directed by and starring Laurence Olivier.
The Edinburgh International Film Festival runs from August 15-26.
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