THE Glasgow Film Festival, now the third biggest in the UK, has always been tops when it comes to putting the audience first.
With venues around the city, and a programme that is as much at home with world cinema as home grown fare, the GFF (February 18-March 1), is living, breathing, dazzling proof that film festivals are for all. This year, co-directors Allison Gardner and Allan Hunter take people power a stage further by introducing the Glasgow Film Festival Audience Award. Your chance to play talent spotter is just one of the 101-plus attractions of this year's event.
Galas
The festival opens on February 18 with the European premiere of the comedy drama While We're Young. Directed by Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Frances Ha) and starring Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts, it's the story of a once hip young filmmaker (Stiller) facing a mid-life career crisis. The closing gala on March 1 is the UK premiere of the Cannes prizewinning Force Majeure, a family drama that starts with an avalanche and leads to no end of domestic storms. Other galas include: Boychoir (Dustin Hoffman as an inspirational choirmaster); The New Girlfriend (a Ruth Rendell story directed by Francois Ozon); Rosewater (The Daily Show's Jon Stewart directs Gael Garcia Bernal); Still Alice (see why Julianne Moore is up for an Oscar as a professor dealing with early onset Alzheimer's); White Bird in a Blizzard (The Descendants' Shailene Woodley comes into her own in a coming of age drama); and X+Y (Rafe Spall, Sally Hawkins, a maths prodigy, laughs and tears). Plus, don't forget to take a punt on the Surprise Film on February 25.
Audience award
Ten films, by new or second time around directors, are in the running, winner to be announced at the closing gala on March 1. In contention are: 52 Tuesdays; Appropriate Behaviour; A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night; Life in a Fishbowl; Mardan; Radiator; Tender; Theeb; When Animals Dream; The Wonders.
Ice maiden
From Casablanca and Gaslight to Notorious and For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ingrid Bergman, born in 1915, was one of the brightest lights in Hollywood's Golden Age. This year's retrospective also includes an exhibition of photographs at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.
Wizards of Oz
This year's country focus is on Australia, with the chance to revisit classics such as Strictly Ballroom at Kelvingrove Museum, plus new works including Sundance winner 52 Tuesdays and the Nick Cave-scored Tender.
Lucky dips
Have I Got News for You stalwart Paul Merton and Neil Brand shout about a silent comedy genius in Buster Keaton Night; teen horror It Follows stars up and coming actor Maika Monroe; while Iceland is the destination for Earl Lynn Nelson and Paul Eenhorn in the comedy drama Land Ho!
Glasgow, cinema city
Highlights of the strand celebrating the Dear Green Place's love for the silver screen include the documentary William McIlvanney: Living with Words; Jeely Jars and Seeing Stars, an exhibition at the Mitchell Library; and the ever popular walking tour. There's another chance to see the gang culture classic Small Faces at a 20th anniversary screening.
International arrivals
Picks include winner of the Golden Lion at Venice, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, a film as weird and gently funny as its title; Mommy, Xavier Dolan on blistering form in the story of a troubled teen and his mother's efforts to steer him from the wild side; dogs rise up against humans in the brilliant and bizarre White God; Berlin Golden Bear winner Black Coal, Thin Ice, is a crime drama set in Nineties China; Blind offers a piercing look at visual loss; Juliette Binoche plays a not so fading star in the drama Clouds of Sils Maria; Nina Hoss, outstanding in A Most Wanted Man, stars in post-wartime drama Phoenix; and Susanne Bier, the Danish director as much at home in Hollywood as Europe, looks at what it means to be a good father in A Second Chance.
Children's hours
A riot of family films includes premieres of Shaun the Sheep The Movie (taking place on February 4); and Moomins on the Riviera.
Homegrown
The best of new British cinema, including Catch Me Daddy (young love meets vengeance); Alan Rickman's period comedy A Little Chaos (Kate Winslet in the court of King Louis XIV; The Falling (starring the Maisie Williams, Game of Thrones, Cyberbully); while Monsters: Dark Continent is the follow up to the sleeper hit of 2010.
Doc holidays
Altman is a documentary looking at how the legendary director shaped the cinema of today; Family Goldmine is the story of one family's struggle to make their fortunes in Mali; Queens of Syria follows Syrian refugees staging The Trojan Women; Red Army shows how ice hockey and the Cold War combined; and Warsaw Uprising, complete with documentary footage shot in 1944, looks unmissable.
Frightfest
Always sells out fast, so don't hang around if horror is your bag. Highlights include the premiere of [REC] 4: Apocalypse; Clown, the new Eli Roth; Ben Kingsley as a doctor with his own special bedside manner in Eliza Graves; the inside story on the Blair Witch project in The Woods; and the bleakly comic Wyrmwood.
Tickets
Available from Monday, January 26, at 10am. In person: GFT, 12 Rose Street, Glasgow G3 6RB. Online: www.glasgowfilm.org/festival; Phone: 0141 332 6535
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