By Lauren Hunter (she/her)
The city’s film fanatics are coming out of hibernation, shaking the dust off and getting ready for action, for the Glasgow Film Festival is back upon us! And this year it’s extra special, because it’s celebrating its 20th anniversary of delighting audiences with premieres, celebrities, retrospectives and more!
So, what’s in store this year? Running from 28 February – 10 March, these 12 days of film magic have something for every taste…
Opening and Closing Galas
The festival is book-ended by two whopper premieres – starting with Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding in its first ever UK screening. This much-anticipated romantic thriller stars none other than Twilight’s Kristen Stewart, who is embroiled in a life of violence and criminality after falling for a mysterious bodybuilder. Opening this year’s proceedings on 28 February, it is not one to be missed!
Moving to the end, the festival will close on 10 March with the world premiere of Janey, a heartfelt but hilarious documentary from Scots comedy royalty Janey Godley, as she bids farewell to the standup stage following her devastating terminal cancer diagnosis. Expect laughter, tears, and maybe an appearance from some well-known faces…
Tickets for both the opening and closing galas are available from 25 January.
Premieres, premieres, premieres…
Audiences can expect to be treated to an abundance of Scottish, UK, and world premieres throughout the course of the festival. Highlights include:
The world premiere of Tummy Monster, directed by Glasgow’s Ciaran Lyons and featuring rising star Lorn Macdonald, about a bizarre clash between a self-absorbed tattoo artist and an international popstar.
Bleeding Love, starring Ewan McGregor and his real-life daughter Clara McGregor, in its UK premiere. This follows a young woman’s road trip across Mexico with her estranged father.
Sci-fi romance The Beast, starring 1917’s George MacKay, in its Scottish premiere.
And perhaps most special of all, there’s a world premiere of rarely-before-seen documentary Billy Connolly: Big Banana Feet, charting the Big Yin’s legendary 1975 Irish tour.
The premieres are too many and massive to mention them all here, but you can check out GFF’s full programme to see what other exclusives take your fancy.
The Audience Award – sponsored by MUBI
This is where you come in! From romances to Westerns, documentaries to dramas and everything in between, this year’s eight picks from first or second-time directors will battle it out for the title of best feature film – as decided by you, the audience! Again, keep an eye out for those films and get your voting cards at the ready…
Country in focus: Czech, Please!
BROTHERS – Image Credit: Glasgow Film Festival
Every year, the festival takes a deep-dive into the filmic offerings of different countries from around the world, and in 2024 we’re going to Czechia (aka the Czech Republic)! There’s an interesting focus on feminism and gender politics with showings of once-banned film Daisies, the UK premiere of documentary Is There Any Place for Me, Please?, and period drama We Have Never Been Modern. It’s a great opportunity to see something new, and it even includes the country’s submission for this year’s ‘Best International Film’ Oscar, Brothers.
Retrospectives
2024 is a triple-whammy for film anniversaries in Glasgow, marking 85 years since the opening of Scotland’s first arthouse cinema, Cosmo, later becoming the GFT, celebrating its 50th year, and GFF marking its 20th edition. With this in mind, the retrospective series is called ‘Our Story So Far’, screening classic films from throughout the decades of Glasgow’s cinema history.
You can take in everything from The Godfather: Part II to Walk the Line, but be quick – these screenings take place every morning of the festival at 10:30am on a first come, first served basis, so you best get to the front of the queue!
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That’s certainly enough to get your teeth into, but there’s so much more to see in these jam-packed 12 days which show Glasgow at its finest and leave you reeling for more. Particularly in this special year, the Glasgow Film Festival is the hottest ticket in town – speaking of which, you can get yours from 11am on 29 January here or from the GFT box office.
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