In its 20^th year, Glas­gow Film Fes­ti­val con­tin­ues to fos­ter com­mu­ni­ty through cinema

“Sun­dance, Berlin, Glas­gow!” – so is the trio of inter­na­tion­al film cap­i­tals pro­posed by fes­ti­val direc­tor Alli­son Gard­ner at the launch of this year’s Glas­gow Film Fes­ti­val. It’s a know­ing­ly irrev­er­ent sug­ges­tion, but it’s unde­ni­able that GFF – now in its 20^th year – con­sis­tent­ly punch­es above its weight in the UK film cal­en­dar, arguably lead­ing the pack of Scot­tish fes­ti­vals ahead of its star­ry Edin­burgh equivalent.

This year’s biggest coup is the open­ing gala, the Kris­ten Stew­art-star­ring Love Lies Bleed­ing, which kicks off ten packed fes­ti­val days. Receiv­ing its UK pre­mière at GFF after screen­ings at – you guessed it! – Sun­dance and Berlin, the high­ly antic­i­pat­ed queer revenge thriller is lapped up by the live­ly Glas­gow audi­ence. In the sub­se­quent Q&A, direc­tor Rose Glass (Saint Maud) offers anec­dotes about Stew­art call­ing her char­ac­ter the c‑word, and Ed Har­ris – who plays her vil­lain­ous father – sup­ply­ing his own wig.

The festival’s cen­tral hub of activ­i­ty is the Glas­gow Film The­atre, the city’s icon­ic art deco cin­e­ma, which also cel­e­brates its 50^th birth­day in 2024. Each day of the fes­ti­val kicks off with a free screen­ing on the cinema’s biggest screen, where caf­feinat­ed ear­ly-ris­ers are reward­ed with a gratis view­ing of a clas­sic from Mr Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton to Foxy Brown. As I write this, I’m cur­rent­ly ral­ly­ing a gang of fel­low free­lanc­ing mil­len­ni­als to accom­pa­ny me to Thursday’s 10am show­ing of Rian Johnson’s Brick – released in 2004, the year of the first GFF – which remains one of the most under­rat­ed teen weirdo films of the last few decades.

Aside from an arbi­trary award giv­en to vis­it­ing star Vig­go Morten­son, GFF is admirably egal­i­tar­i­an; an audi­ence-focused fes­ti­val where pun­ters, crit­ics, staff, film­mak­ers and indus­try work­ers feel like one and the same. Aside from a cou­ple of spe­cial events, all the screen­ings, talks and par­ties take place along the same strip in the city cen­tre, mean­ing there’s both a gen­uine IRL buzz and a less fran­tic atmos­phere than at fes­ti­vals spread out across big cities. I spot a film­mak­er and a few fel­low crit­ics at Sat­ur­day night’s movie karaōke, where guests take turns to belt out clas­sic nee­dle drops. The high­light? ​“Sweet Trans­ves­tite” from Rocky Hor­ror. If you were there, I was the girl doing Seal’s ​“Kiss From a Rose”.

It’s per­haps the festival’s down-to-earth atmos­phere that con­vinces Morten­son to stick around an extra day for a sur­prise Q&A at the sec­ond screen­ing of his West­ern The Dead Don’t Hurt, to the delight of those who missed out on tick­ets for its UK pre­mière the night before. The relaxed vibe also results in a fan­tas­tic unabashed Q&A from Max­ine Peake – here to sup­port her strong per­for­mance in Alan Friel’s mid­dling dystopi­an thriller Wok­en – who declares that ​“I’m no method actor…I mean, I’m not an arse­hole”. Oth­er guests spot­ted in the hall­ways of the GFT are Ben Wheat­ley, here to intro­duce a 15^th-anniver­sary screen­ing of Down Ter­race, and local Oscar-win­ner Kevin Mac­don­ald, rep­re­sent­ing his own High & Low: John Gal­liano, as well as Made in Eng­land, a doc­u­men­tary about his grand­fa­ther Emer­ic Pressburger’s col­lab­o­ra­tive rela­tion­ship with Michael Pow­ell, nar­rat­ed by none oth­er than Mar­tin Scorsese.

The audi­ence demand for a wide range of films also speaks to the festival’s egal­i­tar­i­an spir­it. Big hit­ters like the charm­ing Bil­ly Con­nol­ly doc­u­men­tary Big Banana Feet and Bertrand Bonello’s sci-fi romance The Beast are quick to sell out, but so are trick­i­er prospects like Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s epic About Dry Grass­es. Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World plays to a packed-out Fri­day night crowd, but fails to impress me despite its accu­mu­lat­ing buzz – I think Jude would be pleased to know that it seems to be the most debat­ed film of the fes­ti­val. Apt­ly for a city host­ing week­ly protests against the geno­cide in Gaza, the longest queue I see is for the com­plex, West Bank-set dra­ma The Teacher, shot by British-Pales­tin­ian film­mak­er Farah Nabul­si entire­ly on loca­tion in the occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries. Even through the lens of fic­tion, it’s heart­break­ing to be con­front­ed with images that could no longer fea­si­bly be made fol­low­ing the cur­rent destruction.

Although I thought it was my most niche pick, it proves impos­si­ble to score a friend an extra tick­et for We Have Nev­er Been Mod­ern, Matej Chlupacek’s peri­od dra­ma with themes of prej­u­dice against inter­sex peo­ple. Part of GFF’s strand of Czech cin­e­ma, the film is part detec­tive sto­ry, part exam­i­na­tion of soci­etal atti­tudes in pre-war Europe, with a spell­bind­ing cen­tral per­for­mance from Eliš­ka Křenková. The film’s design is espe­cial­ly notable; cul­ti­vat­ing sin­is­ter irony from the jux­ta­po­si­tion of choco­late box land­scapes with mys­te­ri­ous­ly colour-cod­ed costuming.

Styl­is­tic big swings are also abun­dant in The Vourdalak, a notably folk­loric vam­pire sto­ry by Adrien Beau, who has pre­vi­ous­ly worked as a fash­ion and the­atre design­er. Kacey Mot­tet Klein plays a hap­less French aris­to­crat who hap­pens upon a creepy fam­i­ly, just as their super­nat­ur­al secret reveals itself. The always fan­tas­tic Ari­ane Labed is the MVP, turn­ing in a deli­cious­ly strange, deft­ly phys­i­cal per­for­mance as the family’s spin­ster daugh­ter. The film also fea­tures per­haps the most dis­arm­ing pup­pet per­for­mance since Baby Annette, and teas­es out its cen­tral bat­tle of patri­ar­chal vio­lence vs non-con­for­mi­ty through both its fable-esque sto­ry and its strik­ing cos­tume design.

Thanks to a hand­ful of small but thought­ful­ly put-togeth­er strands, GFF’s reper­to­ry pro­gram­ming is also strong this year, and is large­ly led by up-and-com­ing Scot­tish cura­tors. The fem­i­nist col­lec­tive Invis­i­ble Women present a Dolores del Río ret­ro­spec­tive, and Rosie Beattie’s What Will The Men Wear? series high­lights the gen­der-sub­vert­ing style of Gre­ta Gar­bo, Mar­lene Diet­rich and Katharine Hep­burn. My favourite screen­ing of GFF so far comes cour­tesy of Love is Sweet, Oh!, a strand of films about Black peo­ple and peo­ple of colour expe­ri­enc­ing love, curat­ed by Tomi­wa Folorunso.

Along­side well-known titles Bend It Like Beck­ham and Hap­py Togeth­er, Folorun­so screens ​‘90s Chica­go-set Black rom-com Love Jones, star­ring Nia Long and Larenz Tate – a rarely-screened gem which has the most heart­felt audi­ence recep­tion I’ve expe­ri­enced all fes­ti­val. It’s off-the-beat­en-track treats like this, along­side the more head­line-grab­bing films, that make GFF what it is: a warm, wel­com­ing fes­ti­val that doesn’t com­pro­mise on intel­li­gent, thought­ful programming.