With female-led films often being disregarded when it comes to festival and awards season attention, the Glasgow Film Festival is making a stand by opening and closing its 2020 programme with two films directed and led by women; a first in its history.

Opening the festival on Sun 26 Feb is the UK premiere of Proxima, a drama by the award-winning director of Augustine and Disorder, Alice Winocour. In it, Eva Green (Casino Royale, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children) gives an emotional and heart-felt performance as astronaut Sarah Loreau, a woman torn between her role as a mother and her professional ambition. As she takes on the gruelling training required for a one-year mission aboard the International Space Station, Loreau realises that being the only mother on the team comes with its own set of challenges and impossible choices.

The 2020 Glasgow Film Festival closing gala takes on a slightly more humorous tone with the UK premiere of How to Build a Girl for International Women's Day (Sun 8 Mar). Coky Giedroyc directs this big screen adaptation of Caitlin Moran's semi-autobiographical bestseller. Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart) leads the cast of this coming-of-age comedy as Johanna Morrigan, a sixteen-year-old extrovert who reinvents herself as music critic Dolly Wilde.

On the film closing the GFF, Caitlin Moran said: 'It is the greatest thrill of my life to finally unleash Beanie Feldstein as the noble, swashbuckling Sex Pirate Johanna Morrigan at the Glasgow Film Festival - and to have the honour of closing this joyous cinematic explosion means the whole audience can come straight to the nearest pub with me, and celebrate the hotness of Alfie Allen as John Kite. Unless Glasgow's gone off that kind of thing since last time I was there. Which I doubt.'

The full programme for the festival is to be announced on Wed 29 Jan. Paul Bush OBE, VisitScotland's Director of Events said about the festival: 'This first announcement for Glasgow Film Festival 2020 is just a taster for what is sure to be another great programme. I am delighted to see women at the fore, bookending this fantastic annual celebration of cinema and once again showcasing Scotland as the perfect stage for inclusive and world-class events.'

Glasgow Film Festival, Various Venues, Glasgow, Wed 26 Feb-Sun 8 Mar, prices vary. Find out more at glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-film-festival.