January
05
Special Events, Anniversary Retrospective and Country Focus Announced for Glasgow Film Festival 2024
The programme for the 20th edition of Glasgow Film Festival, (28 Feb – 10 March 2024) celebrates 50 years of the festival’s home -Glasgow Film Theatre and 85 years since the Cinema was first built.
‘Our Story So Far’ is a selection of free screenings, showing iconic films marking milestones in Glasgow Film’s history, including: Mr Smith Goes To Washington;Young Frankenstein and Brick.
First pop-up special events announced across the city will celebrate a bumper year of anniversaries with titles from 1939 and 1974.
The Country Focus: Czech, please! turns the lens on contemporary and classic Czech cinema, including features from the esteemed Věra Chytilová, debut director Jarmila Štuková and an Academy Award title contender from Tomáš Mašín.
Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) has announced the first major events and screenings for its 20thanniversary edition, running at Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) and venues across the city from 28 February to 10 March 2024.
GFF’s legendary special events return with two films celebrating two landmark years in Glasgow Film’s history. In 1939 the Cosmo cinema, now the GFT, opened and to mark 85 years of one of the city’s cultural gems, movie fans can click their ruby red slippers together three times to betransported to a magical screening of Victor Fleming’s 1939 technicolour masterpiece The Wizard of Oz. GFF will also host a grotesquely glamorous tribute screening to schlock auteur John Waters magnum opus Female Trouble which celebrates its 50th anniversary along with Glasgow Film Theatre which was first established in 1974.
GFF’s free morning retrospective returns for 2024 with Our Story So Far, a journey through time with 10 classic titles from each anniversary in Glasgow Film’s history. These widely popular morning creenings are free to attend and give audiences access to view undisputed classics on the big screen again. 1939 was not only an iconic year for Glasgow Film but for cinema; retrospectives scheduled to screen from this year are- Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Only Angels Have Wings and Wuthering Heights. The festival offers a rare opportunity to see a back catalogue from 1974 including The Godfather Part II, Young Frankenstein and Foxy Brown. To celebrate the inaugural edition of the festival in 2005, the festival will screen Brick and Walk the Line. Each year the festival shines a light on global cinema, exploring contemporary and re-discovered film and this year the festival’s Country of Focus is Czechia (also known as Czech Republic). Czech,please! includes titles such as Daisies, a radical feminist film from Věra Chytilová once banned for its stance on communism and patriarchy. Is There Any Place For Me, Please? a debut feature documentary and UK premiere from Jarmila Štuková showcases an intimate portrayal of onewoman navigating life after an acid attack. Other premieres include dystopian sci-fi Restore Point and chilling crime thriller Mr. and Mrs. Stodola. Timely period drama We Have Never Been Modernwill inspect gender politics, martial constraints and self-identity. Brothers, Czechia’s official submission to the 2024 Academy Awards for the Best International Film, examines liberation and resilience in a story focused on an anti-Communist resistance group.
GFF is one of the leading film festivals in the UK and is run by Glasgow Film, a charity which also runs Glasgow Film Theatre. Glasgow Film Festival is made possible by support from Screen Scotland, the BFI Audience Projects Fund, awarding National Lottery funding and Glasgow Life.
Allison Gardner, CEO of Glasgow Film and Director of GFF since 2007, will programme GFF24 alongside a group of exciting emerging voices in the Scottish film festival scene including outstanding feature film by a first or long time director. The award is chosen by the most important people – GFF audiences.
The shortlist for the GFF24 Audience Award will be announced with the full programme on Wednesday 24 January with tickets going on sale on Monday 29 January.
Glasgow Film Festival fans can purchase T-shirts, tote bags and mugs this festive season by shoppinghere: https://glasgow-film-festival.teemill.com/
Special GFF 20th edition merchandise will also be on sale.
GFF was named the Big Screen Event of the Year at Screen International’s Big Screen Awards in November 2022 for achieving a record high of 73% audience capacity at its first in-person edition post-Covid.
Previous GFF guests include Richard Gere, Alan Rickman, John C. Reilly, Saoirse Ronan, George MacKay, Richard Dreyfuss, Karen Gillan, Jessie Buckley, Sir Michael Palin, Josh O'Connor, Ben Wheatley, Armando Iannucci, Jack O’Connell, Dexter Fletcher, Peter Mullan, George Sluizier, Peter Capaldi, Ty West, Richard Ayoade, David Dastmalchian, Eli Roth and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
http://www.glasgowfilm.org/festival