Glasgow's film festival, which begins tonight, is already set for a bumper season, with ticket sales ahead of this time last year.

The Glasgow Film Festival opens with the European premiere of While We're Young, a film made by Noah Baumbach starring Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts.

HeraldScotland will be running live reviews by film critic Alison Rowat each night

Last year the festival, which runs from February 18 to March 1, registered 40,000 admissions. Compared to this time last year, ticket sales are already up 5%, the festival said.

This year's festival, the 11th edition, will feature 174 events, including 11 world premieres. Force Majeure, which won the jury prize at Cannes, will be the closing gala.

One of the main stars attending the festival this year is Alan Rickman, who will be in the city to support A Little Chaos, which he directed and stars in.

His second film as a director after 1997's The Winter Guest, A Little Chaos follows Sabine, played by Kate Winslet, a strong-willed landscape designer who "challenges sexual and class barriers" when she is chosen to build one of the main gardens at King Louis XIV's new palace at Versailles.

The main film festival programme includes fewer events than last year due to the refurbishment of Cineworld in Renfrew Street.

There are 33 UK premieres and 10 European premieres as well as a range of special screenings.

These include the first ever film screening at Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Queen's Cross church.

The festival will screen Love is All, a history of love in the movies, at the venue. Soprano Layla Brown will sing modern and classic love songs associated with cinema.

This year's festival will also see the inaugural Audience Award, the winner of which will be announced at the Closing Gala.

A selection of ten films by first and second-time directors, including Ana Lily Amirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night and Alice Rohrwacher's The Wonders, will be voted on by the public.