Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) has today (Wednesday 25 January) announced its full programme for its 19th annual edition.
The city’s annual celebration of cinema returns from 1 to 12 March, with the festival hosting over 250 screenings and events, including 70 UK premiers, six World premiers, 16 European/International premieres and 6 Scottish premieres at Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) and other venues across the city.
The festival will open with the sold-out UK premiere of Glasgow writer-director Adura Onashile’s feature film debut Girl. With the Opening Gala completely sold out, an extra screening has been added on Thursday 2 March due to phenomenal demand.
GFF23 will close on 12 March with the UK premiere of We Are Lady Parts creator Nida Manzoor’s feature debut Polite Society. Following terrific buzz at Sundance Film Festival 2023, this riotous action-comedy will provide the perfect ending to the 2023 Festival, filled with hi-jinks, high kicks and some Bollywood style razzle-dazzle.
Tickets for the Closing Gala are now on sale, while tickets for the full GFF23 programme go on sale at 12 noon on Monday 30 January from GFT Box Office, online at www.glasgowfilm.org/festival and via telephone on 0141 332 6535.
Visit the official Glasgow Film Festival website for more information and to purchase tickets.
Glasgow Film Festival is the festival for audiences and the 2023 festival aims to be affordable for all, with a range of free, Pay What You Can and £6.50 tickets for select events. Audiences can start their day with daily free morning showings of big screen classics, get Pay What You Can tickets for the World premieres of new Scottish feature Dog Days and archive documentary The Freedom Machine, and pay just £6.50 for tickets to the retrospectives of Oscar-winning Hollywood siren Gloria Grahame and Looking For America: The Films of Lee Grant
This year’s festival will also be GFF Co-Director Allan Hunter’s final festival. To mark this he will host a free morning retrospective of female-focused modern classics In the Driving Seat, from Thelma & Louise to Bonnie and Clyde.
GFF is one of the leading film festivals in the UK and run by Glasgow Film, a charity which also runs GFT. GFF is made possible by support from our EventScotland team, Screen Scotland, the BFI (awarding funds from the National Lottery), and Glasgow Life.
I’m always so excited to share the hard work of the team here at Glasgow Film and let our audiences and film colleagues across the UK and beyond know about the great range of films we have on offer. I’m delighted that audiences across the country can watch How To Blow Up a Pipeline and The Five Devils at our partner venues. We can’t wait for UK audiences to be the first to see films such as My Name is Alfred Hitchcock, with a 60th anniversary screening of The Birds on the first Sunday, Sanctuary and some fabulous Icelandic films, Driving Mum, A Letter from Helga and Band. Whilst I will sorely miss my co-director Allan as this is his last year, I think he would agree that this programme is a fabulous testament to the power of cinema.
It is always a thrill to raise the curtain on the GFF programme. The string of hand-picked gems for 2023 stretches from glorious new work by home grown talent to the very best that world cinema has to offer. Spanish cinema is a blazing beacon of creativity right now and I can’t wait for audiences to watch a stunning selection of premieres that includes the nail biting, award-winning thriller The Beasts, the irresistible family drama Lullaby and Prison 77, a jail story to rival The Shawshank Redemption. There are so many things I want to recommend from the tense Turkish thriller Burning Days to the magical, eye-popping The Ordinaries, to the latest Lav Diaz epic When The Waves Have Gone. All that plus a free retrospective that allows audiences to see undisputed classics like Bonnie and Clyde and The Piano on the big screen and absolutely free. If you love movies then where else would you want to be in March?
EventScotland is a long-term supporter of Glasgow Film Festival, and we are delighted to be continuing our support of this year’s festival through our International Programme. Each year the festival continues to expand, innovate and adapt while ensuring its ethos of "cinema for all" remains steadfast. By programming films set in Scotland alongside the best that world cinema has to offer, the festival plays a key part in inspiring both visitors and locals to explore beyond the film set, helping drive screen tourism which offers a fantastic opportunity to make a real connection with Scotland, our places, our people and our culture. Congratulations to Allison, Allan and all the GFF team on another fantastic programme – we wish Allan a wonderful final edition.