Louis Paxton returned to Edinburgh International Film Festival in a slightly different role for 2026: having his feature debut The Incomer in the prestigious opening night slot. It was particularly poignant considering his past with the festival: “I worked four or five festivals in a row as an usher at Filmhouse. The idea of having our UK premiere for my first feature in the cinema where I used to watch films was wonderful.”
It was not Paxton’s first high of 2026: the offbeat comedy drama premiered at Sundance back in January, winning the Next section’s innovator award.
The director’s feature debut is about siblings (played by Gayle Rankin and Grant O’Rourke) whose lives on an isolated island are thrown for a loop when a council worker (Domhnall Gleeson) arrives to evict them. Universal/Focus has international rights and releases in the UK on September 4, with Sumerian Pictures handling the US release on September 25.
Edinburgh-born Paxton had been making shorts for over a decade, including the 2021 Bafta Scotland-nominated Neville Is Dead, gaining a directing MA from the National Film and Television School and working on TV series including the BBC’s Shetland and Wreck. Now he is focused on upcoming film projects, including Waffle House Index, written by Andrew Nunnelly and produced by Plan B. The “genre mash-up” centres on a waitress at a US diner having the worst night of her life.
Paxton also has plans closer to home, writing Highlands-set The Big Man. “I’d liken it tonally to a Martin McDonagh dark thriller/comedy, or a Coen brothers Fargo-esque feeling.”
The director is also developing a horror film with Western Edge Pictures producer Tom Wood called The Bilge, set on a female convict ship en route to Australia. “It’s the genre movie I always wanted to see mashed up with the maritime story I always wanted to see.”
On a lighter note, Paxton is reteaming with O’Rourke for Diddlers, a comedy set in the competitive world of ‘mouth music’, a Scottish tradition of rhythmic singing. “My goal has always been to make films that are uniquely Scottish in their identity but accessible for people all over the world,” he says.
Contact: Olivia Gray, Independent Talent
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