Glasgow Film Festival 2013
February not only brings dismal weather to Scotland this year, but also the highly successful Glasgow Film Festival. Now in its thirteenth year, the GFF is the fastest growing and third biggest event in the country. Last year, 35,000 people attended the 350+ events, showing that not only London has the monopoly on the festival circuit.
Glasgow is a great vibrant city full of history, and a perfect place to hold such a massive event. Edinburgh is seen as the festival capital of Scotland, but Glasgow is certainly starting to turn a few heads and change some minds.
This year sees a very Geek-centric festival; with BBC’s Robert Florence (fae Burnistoun oan the telly) curating Game Cats Go Miow! Hoping to make Glasgow the film festival destination for gamers, the programme includes a live interactive comedy gaming chat show (Rab’s Video Game Empty), featuring lots of special guests and audience participation. There will also be a live review from a panel of experts of the new Aliens: Colonial Marines game, followed by a screening of the original Aliens film. To top all this off, there is also a Cosplay Gala screening of a special film, with best dressed prizes up for grabs.
The festival will also host Kapow!@GFF, a superhero strand curated by Mark Millar, for all those comic book Geeks out there. I doubt any other film festivals caters to our fellow Geek quite as much as the GFF, so make sure you book yourself some tickets and head north (call it an early Christmas present, you deserve it).
For the discerning film buffs out there looking for something a bit more cerebral and thought provoking, the festival is also hosting a showcase of the very best in Brazilian cinema. If City of God and Elite Squad are anything to go by, you also wouldn’t want to miss this.
For anyone who doesn’t fancy reading their movies (in which case, please leave now, we can’t be friends anymore), the festival is also holding a James Cagney retrospective, looking at the work of one of the finest and most versatile actors to grace the silver screen.
That’s a lot going on for one film festival, but it keeps getting bigger. We also have the Glasgow Music and Film Festival, the Glasgow Short Film Festival, and the Glasgow Youth Film Festival, showcasing pretty much everything any self respecting cineaste could ask for.
The main festival runs from the 14th – 24th of February 2013, with the Youth Festival running between the 3rd – 13th, and the Short Film Festival running between the 7th – 10th.
Tickets go on sale on the 19th of January, but for those excited few you can enquire about purchasing Early Bird specials here. All that is left to ask is, what are you still doing reading this? Head over to the website and get involved:
Mark Brassington 