The Edinburgh Film Festival (18-29 June 2008) has launched a small new strand of films which takes as its inspiration the work of cult filmmaker John Waters. Under The Radar will screen six feature films including two world, two international and two UK premieres which, say the EIFF in a release, deploy "low budgets to imaginative effect and range from being variously kitsch, gory, disturbing and hilarious." Some short films on this edgier theme will also be screened with these features.

"The term ‘cult cinema' has become mere marketing-speak in recent years. With this new section, we want to re-animate the spirit of the truly cult-worthy ‘midnight movie', by showing films that take real risks with their ideas, their aesthetic choices and their humour," said artistic director Hannah McGill.

"This is a diverse section, but it is all the work of filmmakers with vision, creativity, and balls (figuratively speaking, of course, as two of them are women!). They are highly appropriate discoveries for a festival that has in the past welcomed many of the great cult innovators, among them Sam Fuller, John Waters, George Romero and Roger Corman."

The Films

From the UK, Crack Willow receives its world premiere, and is directed by local Edinburgh College of Art graduate Martin Radich. A previous EIFF Best Short Film laureate, Radich makes his feature debut with his interpretation of the psychological effects of social decay.

Also from the UK, Bigga Than Ben: A Russians' Guide To Ripping Off London stars Ben Barnes and features music by Pete Doherty and Joe Strummer. Directed by S A Halewood, the dark comedy is described as "a step-by-step guide to defrauding banks, shoplifting, joyriding on the tube and cooking crack cocaine, based on the bestselling Russian diaries of Pavel Tetersky and Sergei Sakin."

The second world premiere is Robert Beaucage's Spike, a horror-cum-romance from the US which "overturns genre conventions to explore the darker side of fairytale mythology."

Blood Car, also from the US, is the feature debut from Alex Orr. Described as a "satire on the voracious global appetite for oil," it follows a teacher who invents a car that runs on human blood to combat the high price of petrol.

Luciano Podcaminsky's Super 8 travelogue The Third Pint from Argentina, and Strange Girls from US director Rona Mark have their internaional premieres. The Third Pint follows the reminiscences of a man who became invisible after drinking three pints - which throws him into an existential flux whilst also opening up opportunities for observing humanity. Strange Girls explores the rotten underbelly of female relationships gone wrong, through the strange world of twin sisters in Pittsburgh who happily follow their perverse passions for porn and trepanation until a handsome man comes between them.

The full EIFF programme will be announced on 7 May and the box office opens at noon on Friday 9 May.