The GFF short film strand contains some of the festival gems, writes Miles Fielder.

‘Short film is something of a catch-all term,’ says Matt Lloyd, co-curator of the Glasgow Short Film Festival and co-founder of Scotland’s independent shorts programming outfit The Magic Lantern. ‘It encompasses narrative cinema, artists’ film and video, music promos, fragments, experiments and works-in-progress. And that’s the way we at The Magic Lantern like it. Our programme for GSFF 2010 pulls all these disparate elements together into an intense weekend of cross-fertilisation of ideas and forms, celebrating Glasgow’s unique art, music and film scenes and promoting the most innovative new work from around the globe.’

That certainly appears to be the case. The core competition programme showcases the work of 33 new and emerging filmmaking talents – tomorrow’s Martin Scorseses here today! – who contend for the inaugural Best International Short Film Award and a handy cash prize. Built around the competition are various screenings and events, among the highlights of which are the UK debut of American low-budget collective Court 13 (‘These guys are on the verge of hitting the big time with their various debut features,’ says Lloyd), GFF alumni Murray Grigor’s shot-for-shot remake/update of his 1972 architectural doc Space & Light Revisited, and weird and wonderful snippets from 100-year-old carnival-esque films in How’s the Ghost? Presents: The Movie Trailer. All that plus guest-curated programmes by the likes of the UK longest-running internet radio station Radio Magnetic and a closing night party hosted by too-cool-for-school club Optimo.

Remember: you can’t see this way out stuff at your local cinema just any night of the week.

See www.gft.org.uk for all screening dates, times and locations.