Borges and Me World-Premieres at Edinburgh: A Blind Poet, a Road Trip, and a Cast of Literary Giants
A 72-year-old blind poet, a nervous American graduate student, and a road trip through Scotland — that is the premise of Borges and Me, which had its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 15 August 2026 (Instagram/@aprrivateviewproductions).
Marc Turtletaub directed the film, his first feature behind the camera since Jules in 2023 (Deadline). A veteran producer-turned-director, Turtletaub adapts Jay Parini's memoir Borges and Me: An Encounter, published by Canongate and described by the publisher as a "classic road novel based on true events" (Canongate).
The story is set in 1971, when a young Parini enrols at the University of St Andrews and finds himself roped into driving the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges — 72, and totally blind since 1955 — from Scotland to the Orkney Islands to interview the reclusive poet George Mackay Brown (Deadline). It is the stuffy British academic world of the early 1970s, transposed onto a Highland road movie.
Fionn Whitehead, known for Dunkirk, plays Parini. Chilean actor Luis Gnecco takes on Borges. Alan Cumming plays the academic Alistair Reid; Peter Mullan plays George Mackay Brown. Freya Mavor plays a well-read hotel worker who catches Parini's eye. The cast was assembled by October 2024, when the project was first reported (Deadline; The Hollywood Reporter).
The film runs 109 minutes and carries a 15+ age rating (Edinburgh Film Festival). It screened in the festival's Out of Competition strand alongside the world premiere of Empty Heaven (Screen Daily).
Turtletaub discussed the project at Edinburgh in an interview published 13 August, calling it a sprawling Scottish road movie (Deadline). The festival itself promoted the film as "a beautiful 1970s road-movie adaptation of Jay Parini's acclaimed memoir" (Edinburgh Film Festival, Facebook).
A title card at the end of the film offers a wry postscript: almost everything that happens in the movie is true, to a degree (Deadline).
No distribution deal or theatrical release date has been announced. The film is seeking buyers out of its Edinburgh premiere.
