Glasgow Film Festival 2025 Full Programme Announced

Glasgow Festival 2025 Programme Launch

Glasgow Film Festival 2025 (GFF25) has announced the full programme for its 21st edition. Across 12 packed days, Scotland’s largest annual celebration of cinema will showcase 92 World, UK and Scottish premieres from 39 countries.

GFF25 will open on Wednesday 26 February with the Gala World premiere of tour-de-force survival thriller Tornado, the hotly anticipated sophomore feature from Scottish director John Maclean (Slow West). Set in the rugged landscape of 1790’s Britain, Tornado (played by model-songwriter Kōki,) finds herself caught in a perilous situation when she and her father’s travelling puppet show crosses paths with a ruthless criminal gang led by Sugarman (Pulp Fiction star Tim Roth) and his ambitious son Little Sugar (Slow HorsesJack Lowden). In an attempt to create a new life, Tornado seizes the opportunity to steal the gold from the gang’s most recent heist; what follows is a thrilling tale of adrenaline-fueled action as Tornado fights to escape a violent demise. 

The festival will close on Sunday 9 March with the Gala World premiere of award-winning Scottish documentary-maker Martyn Robertson’s Make It To Munich. Shot in the run-up to Euro 2024, Make It To Munich follows Ethan Walker, a promising teenage footballer from Aberdeenshire who, just months into a football scholarship at a USA University, suffers life-threatening injuries in a road traffic accident. Aided in his recovery by pioneering Glasgow surgeon Professor Gordon Mackay, Ethan decides to cycle from Hampden to Munich for Scotland’s opening match against Germany in Euro 2024 – just nine months after his accident. Entrusted by the Scotland National team to carry the match pennant on his back for the whole journey and deliver it in time for kick off, Ethan is accompanied in this epic quest by Gordon, Tartan Army foot-soldier Stephen Collie and Martyn himself. 

GFF25 is also thrilled to welcome Glasgow-born Hollywood star James McAvoy for a special In Conversation event, looking back at his career. 

Glasgow Film Festival Tornado Jack Lowden

World and European Premieres

One Name. Two World Champions. In 1996, Damon Hill claimed the Formula 1 World Championship. In doing so he cemented his place in motorsport history, following in the footsteps of his legendary father, Graham Hill. Getting its World premiere at GFF25, Hill is a unique family story set against the backdrop of the fastest sport in the world. How Damon Hill defied the odds and overcame tragedy to step out of his father’s shadow and become a racing legend in his own right. 

GFF25 will host a special world premiere screening of the first episode of major new Amazon Studios produced thriller Fear, shot in Glasgow’s West End and starring GFF favourites Martin Compston, Solly Macleod and James Cosmo, ahead of its UK release later this year. 

UK Premieres

Jessica Lange, Ed Harris, Ben Foster and Colin Morgan lead a star-studded adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which will receive its UK premiere at GFF25. Winner of two Academy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award, Hollywood legend Jessica Lange will also take part in an exclusive In Conversation event, looking back at her six decades-long screen career, from King Kong and Tootsie to Rob Roy and American Horror Story

Other UK premieres include The Return, which sees Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche reunite in a new version of Homer’s Odyssey; Luckiest Man In America, an engrossing game-show thriller based on the true story of an ice-cream truck driver (Paul Walter Hauser) whose winning streak on ‘Press Your Luck’ threatens to bankrupt the production company, featuring terrific performances from Walter Goggins, David Strathairn and Shamier Anderson in support; Alfie Allen in mesmerising form as the Army veteran responsible for the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in USA history in McVeigh; New Zealand ghost story Went Up The Hill, starring Cannes award-winner Vicky Krieps and Stranger ThingsDacre Montgomery; and Stealing Pulp Fiction, a comedy heist film about three aspiring Hollywood friends who plot to steal Quentin Tarantino‘s personal 35mm print. 

World cinema gems getting their first UK big screen outings at GFF include I Do Not Come To You By Chance from Nigerian director Chioma Onyenwe about an unemployed young graduate who becomes embroiled in his uncle’s scam email business; Luis Ortega’s stylish, gender-fluid Argentinian crime caper Kill The JockeyDaniela Forever, a Spanish sci-fi romance starring Henry Golding as a bereaved man who enrolls in a clinical trial for a drug that allows him to reunite with his lost lover; Queens, Klaudia Reynicke’s heartwarming autobiographical drama charting an estranged father’s attempts to reconnect with his daughters as they and their mother prepare to leave the turbulence of 1990s Peru for a new life in the USA; Tunisian drama Red Path, that captures the contrast between childhood innocence and violence as young Arabic shepherd Ashraf deals with his cousin’s murder; and the third installment in Japan’s ever-popular Baby Assassins series, Nice Days, which sees loveable freelance killers Chisato and Mahiro attempt to take a holiday from the bloodshed. 

Long Day's Journey Into Night

Scottish Premieres 

GFF25 will see the first Scottish big screen outings for Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Middle Ages Scottish folk horror Harvest, shot entirely on location in Argyllshire and starring Caleb Landry Jones and Harry Melling;  The End, starring Tilda Swinton, George Mackay and Michael Shannon in Joshua Oppenheimer’s (The Act of Killing) musical fantasy about a rich family sheltering from the end of the world in a converted salt mine; Glasgow’s James McArdle getting a long-overdue leading man role in the charming feel-good comedy Four Mothers, starring as a Young Adult author and carer for his non-verbal mum Alma (Fionnula Flanagan) whose friends all ditch him with their own mums so they can go party at Pride; and Nicolas Cage bringing his trademark full-throttle intensity to The Surfer, a trippy psychological thriller about a dad who is pushed to the edge by local surfers when he returns to his beloved childhood beach with his son.

The Extraordinary Miss Flower – the new performance film from Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard (the team behind 20,000 Days on Earth) – brings to life the remarkable true story of the extraordinary Geraldine Flower and the discovery of a suitcase of love-lorn letters sent to her in the 1960s and 1970s, that inspired acclaimed Icelandic singer/songwriter Emilíana Torrini to return to the studio. Female musical voices are also celebrated in the joyous Italian costume drama Gloria!, in which a seemingly mute maid at a musical institution for orphaned girls discovers a talent for piano which sparks a rebellious revolution amongst the girls. Ukrainian science-fiction drama U Are The Universe centres on a lone astronaut embarking on a dangerous mission in search of connection, a gripping watch made all the more remarkable by the fact it was shot during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

GFF25 will host the Scottish premiere of major new Scotland-based filmmaking talent Laura Carreira’s On Falling, which picked up the prestigious Sutherland Award for Best Debut at BFI London Film Festival 2024. Shot on location in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and produced by Ken Loach’s Sixteen Films, On Falling is an honest and raw depiction of loneliness and the instability of the gig economy through the eyes of Portuguese warehouse picker Aurora. 

GFF25 Audience Award Sponsored by MUBI

Glasgow Film Festival’s longest-standing award returns this year and will be given to an exceptional first- or second-time director. As always, the award is chosen by the most important people: the GFF audience. The GFF25 Audience Award is Sponsored by MUBI, the global streaming service, production company and film distributor dedicated to elevating great cinema. The 10-strong shortlist features Two to One an ensemble comedy following a trio of friends as they hatch a get-rich-quick scheme upon finding a trove of soon-to-be worthless banknotes and starring German A-lister Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of A Fall); the gripping and darkly comic domestic thriller debut Restless in which Jed Hart captures the psychological torment of sleep deprivation when a quiet life is shattered by nightmare new neighbours; Elizabeth Lo’s Mistress Dispeller a fascinating documentary fresh from its success at Venice Film Festival and TIFF that sees undercover ‘mistress dispellers’ – a growing Chinese service – hired by cheated-on spouses to break-up marital affairs and get relationships back on track; Spilt Milk which explores the harsh realities of housing estate life and addiction through a child’s eyes in 1980s Dublin as we follow newcomers Cillian Sullivan and Naoise Kelly as 11-year-old Bobby and his friend Nell while they hunt for his missing brother; Mr. K a darkly comedic mindbender starring Crispin Glover (Back to the Future) as a magician who checks into a strange and decaying hotel full of odd residents; Meat where roots of an ancient Greek tragedy evolve when a patriarch confronts a fateful decision after an enduring family feud escalates to murder in this tense thriller that had its world premiere at TIFF; Silver Star from duo Lola Bessis and Ruben Amar that explores a budding female friendship in a robbery-gone-wrong road-trip drama; Olga Korotko’s second feature and Locarno Golden Leopard nominee Crickets, It’s Your Turn a tense cat and mouse thriller that dissects the patriarchy and toxic masculinity; Jianjie Lin’s impressive debut Brief History of a Family, a thriller drama come-satire set in post one-child-policy China; and Marie-Claire Marcotte’s Neon Dreaming that follows eight-year-old Billie (Maélya Boyd) as she leans on her vivid imagination, and her loyal best friend Sherry (Maïna Rose Caméus), to unravel the web of secrets shrouding her mother’s true identity.

Split Milk GFF25

Special Events and Retrospectives

Audiences can start every GFF day with a free showing of a bonafide classic back on the big screen. For 2025, the retrospective programme’s theme is ‘Our Time is Now: Coming of Age in the Movies’ to tie in with the 21st edition of GFF. The titles include Elia Kazan’s classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) about the tumultuous life of a family in 1900 Brooklyn; Indian masterpiece Pather Panchali (1955), which follows a young man’s journey with his family in search of a better life; and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), starring the late Dame Maggie Smith as an eccentric and liberated school teacher whose ideas of life and love have an influence on her students; Gregory’s Girl (1981) which exposes the awkwardness and joy of first love; Amy Heckerling’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) that brings together a youthful Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage and Jennifer Jason Leigh as rebellious high schoolers; Boyz N the Hood (1991) following teenagers growing up in South Central LA surrounded by guns, drugs and the violence of everyday life; and Shane Meadows’ groundbreaking drama This is England (2006) that captures a snapshot of working class England in the early Thatcher years; Turkish drama Mustang (2015) which won Glasgow Film Festival’s Audience Award in 2016 and follows five sisters living under their family’s strict rules; Julia Durcournau’s debut body horror Raw (2016), a disturbing take on growing up; and lastly, Greta Gerwig’s iconic creation Lady Bird (2017) starring Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet

GFF’s much-loved, highly anticipated special event screenings return this year at atmospheric venues across the city and feature some pre-screening surprises. GFF will make noise at Govan’s Grand Ole Opry for a special 25th anniversary screening of millennial favourite Coyote Ugly with all-singing, all-dancing entertainment. This is all before film lovers ascend the steps of Cottiers in Glasgow’s West End to take their seats at Muriel’s Wedding and celebrate 30 years of Toni Collette’s breakthrough performance of Australia’s most endearing anti-hero. Cottiers will also embrace the supernatural and host Andrew Fleming’s feminist horror classic The Craft for an evening of all things occult.

The pioneering Sweden-born actor and director Mai Zetterling, who made her career on the UK screen and stage, will be celebrated in a special retrospective marking the centenary of her birth. From her on-screen roles including the intriguing war-time thriller The Man Who Finally Died and British noir Blackmailed co-starring Dirk Bogarde, to her diverse directorial features like the fearlessly feminist and sexually frank 1964 debut Loving Couples; and her Venice Golden Lion-winning short The War Game, exploring how young boys are exposed to violence through play, this is a rare opportunity to re-discover the career of a true feminist film pioneer. 

2025 Country Focus: From the Heart of Europe: Austria on Screen

The From the Heart of Europe: Austria on Screen programme brings an eclectic mix from hard-hitting drama to absurdist comedy. Josef Hader’s tragicomedy Andrea Gets a Divorce about a policewoman whose life is turned upside down after an accident with her ex-husband, is joined by Gina, directed by Ulrike Kofler, which inspects the impact of generational poverty. Satirical mockumentary Piggy Bank directed by and starring Christoph Schwarz takes a swipe at performative activism and middle-class apathy and sits alongside Peacock an absurd drama directed by Bernhard Wenger (whose style has been compared to Yorgos Lanthimos). And Veni Vidi Vici takes a stab at the lives of the rich and powerful, helmed by directorial duo Juliane Niemann and Daniel Hoesel. From the Heart of Europe also brings one of Austria’s most famous and audacious filmmakers, Michael Haneke’s classics back to the big screen, with perverse drama The Piano Teacher (2001) starring Isabelle Huppert as a sexually repressed teacher romantically pursued by her younger student; and disturbing psychological thriller Hidden (Caché) (2005) starring Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil as a couple tormented by a stranger keeping them under surveillance.

FrightFest 

The long-celebrated FrightFest returns for its 20th year at GFF and boasts 11 new feature films and seven short films, spanning three continents and five countries. The programme will unveil eight world premieres, two international premieres, five UK premieres and three Scottish premieres in a fear-fuelled Glasgow Film Theatre from 6-8 March.

FrightFest kicks off with Psyche, Stephon Stewart’s poignant exploration of isolation, psychological tension, survival and human vulnerability in a story that follows Mara (Sarah Ritter) adrift in limbo before embarking on a quest to uncover the meaning of life. On the final day of FrightFest, the scariest villain from our collective childhoods returns: Rumplestiltskin. A haunting tale made even darker, bloodier and nastier by Andy Edwards.

Horror lovers can also gorge on David Luke Rees’ directorial debut and world premiere By The Throat packed with nightmares, hallucinations and evil forces; socio-political feminist thriller from Izzy Lee, Houses of Ashes, where a grieving widow must survive psychological and supernatural horrors while under house arrest; A Mother’s Embrace, Cristian Ponce’s second feature that follows a young firefighter’s attempts to save the elderly residents of a local nursing home, with more than just the perilous storm outside to contend with; Paul Boyd’s Scared to Death that follows a group of filmmakers as they attend a seance at an abandoned children’s orphanage; and a war-time sci-fi adventure that sees the inhabitants of a sleepy English village fighting aliens from another world, against a backdrop of the Second World War in Jack Lawrence McHenry’s The Doom Busters.

Four Mothers GFF25

Community and Youth Takeovers 

Glasgow Film Festival Community Takeover Day is a free, fun-filled cinema event, created with and for communities around Glasgow. Residents have already attended Community Planning Meet-Ups to select the film, food and activities for the wider community to enjoy on Saturday 8 March. The Community Takeover is open to all age groups.

The Glasgow Film Young Ambassadors will host the Glasgow Film Festival Youth Takeover, a free pop-up cinema event on Friday 28 February with activities and food for under-25s, all selected by the Young Ambassadors. This event will feature the film, Boys Go To Jupiter, a unique animation from the GFF programme.

Allison Gardner, CEO of Glasgow Film and Director of GFF, said: “I cannot begin to say how excited I am by the brilliant programme we have curated, the breadth of films on offer genuinely has something for everyone. Everyone across Glasgow Film works very hard to make the magic happen and I cannot thank all my colleagues enough for their hard work, enthusiasm and sheer brilliance in making this not only a great festival to attend, but a friendly and supportive environment to work in. I shall be sad that this is my last festival as I’ve had so many magical moments over the years, but I know the great work we have done will ensure that audiences, filmmakers and industry colleagues will continue to support what I consider to be the best film festival in the world.”

Tickets for Opening and Closing Galas go on sale at 10am on Wednesday 22 January. Tickets for the full programme go on sale to GFT Cinecard holders at 10am on Thursday 23 January and on general public sale at 10am on Monday 27 January. Tickets will be on sale online from glasgowfilm.org and at GFT Box Office (12 Rose Street, Glasgow – 0141 332 6535). 

 

Mary Munoz
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