LIGHTS, camera, action ...
the 11th Glasgow Film Festival, which was launched last night, can only serve to bolster the city's reputation as a true home for cinema lovers. A welcome co-star on the international calendar with the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Glasgow's celebration of the movies - which runs from February 18 to March 1 - is packed with UK, European and world premieres, and boasts pop-up cinema events making new use of some of the city's most unusual venues.
This year's festival includes a Cinema City strand, which includes an exhibition bringing together stories and memories from 80 years of cinema-going history, celebrating the fact that this was once the city with the highest ratio of cinemas per head of population anywhere in the world.
While those numbers will never again be matched, Glasgow is fortunate to be blessed with thriving arthouse and independent cinemas - as, indeed, are Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness.
Scotland's movie Davids are taking on the multiscreen Goliaths and more than holding their own. They are to be celebrated as cultural oases of civilisation in what can sometimes seem a philistine world packed with fire-bucket-sized servings of popcorn and ice-cream altars to the gods of profit.
Glasgow's festival will evoke memories of the halcyon days of the cinema - and remind us that the industry is in good hands.
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