Paul Andrew Williams arrives at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival with a lot of gratitude.

“It launched my career,” the director-writer-producer says about EIFF. It was here, nearly two decades ago, he emerged as a fresh new voice on the British film scene, wowing audiences with the BAFTA-nominated neo-noir crime drama London to Brighton . Such was the success of the film in the Scottish capital that it earned Williams the fest’s prestigious New Director’s Award.

“It makes me feel a little bit emotional, actually, because such a lot has happened since [then],” he tells The Hollywood Reporter . Williams, known for psychological thriller Cherry Tree Lane and more recently, the Neil Maskell-starring Bull , comes to the 78th edition with the U.K. premiere of Drag

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