Glasgow Film Festival 2015 programme announced
Noah Baumbach's While We're Young opens the festival's 11th year
Ten European premieres, 11 world premieres, an internet cat video festival, a 1970s roller disco and a ballroom extravaganza at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum – all these and plenty more form part of the 11th Glasgow Film Festival, whose programme has just been announced.
Ingrid Bergman: Feminist Icon celebrates the classic movies of the Swedish star in her centenary year, including a 1930s-style murder mystery party based around a screening of her Murder on the Orient Express in Glasgow’s Trades Hall.
More historic Glasgow venues host screenings as part of the festival’s celebration of the city’s role in film. Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s only church, Mackintosh Queen’s Cross, hosts two contrasting films: Kim Longinotto’s documentary on love in the movies Love is All, as well as dark Australian thriller Wake in Fright. New bar, brewery and restaurant complex Drygate is transformed into a roller disco for a showing of Dazed and Confused, and also hosts classic family movie The Goonies. And Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom comes to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, alongside routines from Scotland’s top ballroom dancers.
Live music – from acts including eagleowl, Monoganon and British Sea Power – combine with film in an evening of crossovers at the O2 ABC, and Icelandic musician Ólafur Arnalds gives a live performance of his ambient soundtrack to TV thriller Broadchurch. Jazz bassist Renaud Garcia-Fons performs a new live soundtrack to the classic animation The Adventures of Prince Achmed, and composer Irene Buckley performs new music to accompany early silent thriller The Fall of the House of Usher on the Wurlitzer cinema organ at Pollokshaws Burgh Hall.
There’s also the chance to vote for your favourite film with the festival’s first Audience Award, where audience members can choose from a selection of ten films from first or second-time directors. All film critics attending the festival will also be asked to vote for their favourite films, and the final Critics’ Choice list will be published after the festival has ended.
The festival opens and closes with two premieres: the opening-night European premiere of Noah Baumbach’s comedy While We’re Young, and the final night’s UK premiere of Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s drama of love and guilt Force Majeure. Elsewhere, there are screenings of Wim Wenders’ new documentary The Salt of the Earth, Roy Andersson’s new black comedy A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Gothic horror Eliza Graves starring Ben Kingsley and Michael Caine, and a new film portrait of Scottish novelist William McIlvanney.
‘It’s a festival filled with people and places close to home but also one that embraces a diverse, wonderful world of cinema,’ said GFF co-director Allan Hunter.
We've already picked out some of our GFF highlights to help you begin to navigate the programme.
Booking opens on Monday 26 January 2015.