The 20th edition of Scotland’s largest film festival will run from 28 February to 10 March at Glasgow Film Theatre plus venues across the city. Glasgow Film will celebrate three major anniversaries this year – 85 years since the opening of Scotland’s first-ever purpose-built arthouse cinema, ‘Cosmo’, on Rose Street in Glasgow in 1939; 50 years since that cinema became Glasgow Film Theatre in 1974; and the 20th edition of Glasgow Film Festival which was launched in 2005.
GFF 2024 will open with the UK premiere of Rose Glass’s new thriller Love Lies Bleeding, starring Kristen Stewart and close with the world premiere of Janey, following Scottish stand-up legend Janey Godley as she embarks on her final live tour following her cancer diagnosis.
Across 12 packed days, the programme boasts 11 world and international premieres, 69 UK premieres and 15 Scottish premieres, from 44 countries.
A Scottish comedy icon makes a welcome return to the big screen with a brand new restoration of the little-seen 1976 documentary Billy Connolly: Big Banana Feet. Lovingly restored by the BFI in collaboration with the film’s director Murray Grigor from the only two 16mm prints known to exist, this comedy charmer follows Billy on his legendary 1975 tour of Ireland.
Glasgow director Ciaran Lyons makes his feature debut with Tummy Monster, a hallucinogenic Scottish black comedy about a self-centred tattoo artist (rising Scottish star Lorn Macdonald from GFF19 closing film Beats) who gets embroiled in a bizarre psychological battle with an international popstar.
Other highlights include David Duchovny adapting and starring in the big screen adaptation of his comic novel Bucky F*ing Dent, about a baseball-mad dad whose terminal cancer diagnosis leads him to be reunited with his estranged son; Edge of Summer, the feature debut from Grierson Award-winning British director Lucy Cohen, about a mother-and-daughter holiday to Cornwall that takes a dark turn after a discovery in a tin mine changes everything; GFF favourite, Canadian actor-writer Jonas Chernick with The Burning Season, a love story told in reverse; and the chance to get an exclusive first look at the entire second season of the award-winning Helensburgh-shot queer BBC Scotland drama Float, written by acclaimed playwright Stef Smith and starring Hannah Jarett Scott and Jessica Hardwick, before it hits TV screens later this year.
69 feature films will get their first ever UK cinema showing at this year’s GFF as the programme boasts a wealth of comedies, dramas and real-life stories from 37 countries across the world.
International features include The Teachers’ Lounge, Germany’s 2024 Oscars Best International Film shortlisted drama about an idealistic young teacher who decides to get involved when one of her students is suspected of theft; Hounds, a tightly-wound Moroccan thriller following a father and son, who are struggling to get by on minor jobs for the local mob, over a single night as a kidnapping goes awry; a grieving father and daughter move from England to Jerusalem to make a fresh start in Palestinian director Muayad Alayan’s moving supernatural drama, A House in Jerusalem, about trauma and the ghosts of our past; the multi-talented Samyuktha Vijayan writing, directing and starring in Blue Sunshine, a finely tuned character study of a transgender woman undergoing her transition in the face of conservative Indian society; Green Border, Agnieszka Holland’s Venice Special Jury Prize Award-winner about the plight of refugees who are shunted back and forth across the no man’s land between Poland and Belarus; Disco Boy, a gripping French drama about an undocumented immigrant who signs up to the 
French Foreign Legion and becomes increasingly psychologically troubled, starring Franz Rogowski (Passages); and Cold, a chilling Icelandic murder mystery unfolding across two time periods as a man and his daughter try to come to terms with a suicide while he investigates historic deaths at a juvenile centre. From the chic and startling French 16mm vampire spinetingler The Vordalak to the Stranger Things meets The Goonies charm of Riddle of Fire, a neo-fairytale about three Wyoming kids embarking on an epic errand, GFF brings a world of new cinema to Glasgow.
Behind the camera talent take their moment in the spotlight with Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, a personal and moving look at two of British cinemas greatest filmmakers, narrated by Martin Scorsese; and Frank Capra: Mr America, the story of how a young immigrant rose through the ranks of early Hollywood to become one of the Great American storytellers.
GFF is also delighted to bring its unique festival magic to nine partner cinemas across the UK with the UK premiere of Alice Rohrwacher’s fantastical, genre-defying gravedigging romantic musical La Chimera starring Josh O’Connor which will screen both at the festival and in cinemas including Barbican and BFI Southbank in London, Chapter in Cardiff, Tyneside in Newcastle, Watershed in Bristol, Broadway in Nottingham, Showroom in Sheffield, DCA in Dundee and Eden Court in Inverness.
The only award handed out at Glasgow Film Festival is given to an outstanding feature film by a first or second time director and is chosen by the most important people – the audience. Sponsored by MUBI, the eight-strong shortlist for the GFF24 Audience Award features films from all over the world in a range of genres.
GFF24 also marks the return of the festival’s beloved special event screenings. Movie fans can click their ruby red slippers together three times to be transported to a magical screening of Victor Fleming’s 1939 technicolour masterpiece The Wizard of Oz at Cottiers Theatre in Glasgow’s West End. For a very different camp classic, there’s a grotesquely glamorous tribute screening to schlock auteur John Waters’ 1974 magnum opus Female Trouble, complete with a live drag show, at Barras Art and Design.
Allison Gardner, CEO of Glasgow Film and Director of GFF, said: “I am extremely proud to have been here for every one of Glasgow Film Festival’s 20 editions. My thanks goes to everyone who has helped us to get this far. Many, many people have worked extremely hard to make this the friendliest film festival in the world.
“One of my highlights of GFF is our Audience Award, this year sponsored by MUBI. The Audience Award supports emerging talent and it’s a joy to see these films play in front of our dedicated audiences. Watch all 8 of our hand picked films and support these directors at the early stages of their directing careers.
“My advice to everyone is to choose films you know nothing about and take a chance, you might discover a hidden gem (and the programme is positively bursting with them!) that will stay with you forever. Here’s to the next 20 years.”
Tickets to Opening and Closing Galas go on sale at 11am on Thursday 25 January; tickets to all events go on sale to GFT Cinecard holders at 11am on Friday 26 January and on general sale at 11am on Monday 29 January at https://www.glasgowfilm.org/home and from the GFT Box Office.
- The Bikeriders – Review - June 30, 2024
- Inside Out 2 – Review - June 30, 2024
- The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – Review - May 24, 2024