One of the first "user generated" films - its cast, director and script voted for online through a social networking website - has landed the coveted role of the closing night gala screening at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Faintheart, a British film made for only £1m, is a romantic comedy about a man obsessed with Viking battle re-enactments, and has already been compared with Shaun of the Dead, Son of Rambow and Monty Python.

Most notably, director Vito Rocco and some of its cast were voted for by MySpace users.

Two years ago, the site launched a competition with the working title MySpace MovieMashUp to launch the first user-generated feature film.

The film script, as well as the cast and crew, came from among the global MySpace community and users voted for their favourite actors to win parts in the film, as well as offering advice to make scenes either funnier or more realistic.

More than 800 MySpace users chose Vito Rocco to direct, based on a sample film he had posted online. The lead role is taken by Eddie Marsan, who is best known for his roles in Vera Drake and Happy-Go-Lucky.

Hannah McGill, the artistic director of the festival, which this year is to be staged in June for the first time, said she saw Faintheart as an ideal closer to the festival, which announced its programme yesterday. "It's a very interesting film because of its beginnings in MySpace but it's also a very lovely and very funny film," she said.

"Last year's festival ended with a film that left us on an up, with Julie Delpy's 2 Days in Paris, and this will too: Faintheart is very sweet, very funny and a nice note to end on."

The festival will showcase 142 films from 29 countries, including 15 world premieres and 72 UK premieres, beginning with The Edge of Love, the film which was written by Scottish playwright Sharman Macdonald and starring her daughter, Keira Knightley, as well as Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy.

The film tells the story of an infamous event in the life of Dylan Thomas when he was shot at by the husband of a mutual friend.

Last year there were 120 films, 25 world premieres and 68 UK premieres - figures that may demonstrate that the festival's move to June has not overly affected its programming.

Some great figures of the screen, such as the pioneer of special effects, Ray Harryhausen, will also be present at the festival. Also among those who are due to attend are Oscar-winning Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, Sir Sean Connery, Brian Cox, director Shane Meadows and award-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins, who shot the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men.

Knightley is also expected to be on the red carpet at the festival's opening night.

Ms McGill added: "A lot of talent will come to support their films but often we tend not to know who until the very last minute."

Other films showing at the event, which runs from June 18 to 29, will be Married Life, a new film starring Pierce Brosnan and Chris Cooper, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams, a documentary about the Abu Ghraib scandal called Standard Operating Procedure, and the new Pixar animation - peculiarly titled WalllE.

Scottish titles include Trouble Sleeping, made by Theatre Workshop, and the New Ten Commandments, a series of short films celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with contributions from Swinton as well as Douglas Gordon, Irvine Welsh and Mark Cousins.

Ms McGill said she was confident that relocating the dates of the festival would be a success.

By moving the dates, it leaves the EIFF as the only film festival in June, although for programming reasons, few films shown at the Cannes festival, taking place later this month, will make it to Edinburgh.

Ms McGill said: "I cannot stop people predicting what will happen, indeed people were predicting what will happen before the programme was published, but I know this festival will prove itself.

"The move to June will always be a process, but I think it will find its place solidly in the calendar pretty quickly, before three years are out."