Glasgow Film Festival starts today with the premiere screening of Girl

Glasgow Film Festival 2023 will celebrate its 19th edition from the 1st – 12th March. Kelly Macdonald, Emily Watson, Monica Dolan, Alistair McGowan and James Cosmo will be among the talent walking the red carpet during the city’s annual celebration of film. Directors attending the festival include Mark Cousins, Carol Morley, Matt Johnson and Daniel Goldhaber.

Tonight, Glasgow writer-director Adura Onashile will lead the local cast on the red carpet for the UK premiere of her feature debut, the Glasgow-filmed Girl. This is the first time a Scottish film has opened GFF.

Glasgow Fillm Festival Highlights

A special tenth anniversary screening of Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin, with a live performance of Mica Levi’s BAFTA nominated score by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jonathan Berman with soundscape by Sound Intermedia. Starring Scarlett Johansson as a sleek alien temptress stalking the streets of a very raucous and real Glasgow, this is a chance to revisit this otherworldly modern classic on the big screen.

Looking for America: The Films of Lee Grant, a celebration of the documentary work of this extraordinary actor/director. Grant’s inspirational career began with her Oscar-nominated film debut in Detective Story(1951) before being halted by the anti-Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s. She was blacklisted for 12 years, returning to star in a string of iconic films including In the Heat of the Night, Valley of the Dolls, The Landlordand Shampoo, for which she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

In the 1980s, Grant began directing documentaries that were way ahead of their time. She brought curiosity and compassion to sharply observed accounts of social issues, the inequalities facing women and the state of America during Ronald Reagan’s Presidency.

Down And Out In America won the Oscar for Best Documentary and Grant was also the first female director to win the Directors Guild Of America Award.

GFF23 will screen five of her documentaries: Battered, Down and Out in America, What Sex Am I?, When Women Kill and The Willmar 8.

Glasgow Film Festival have also announced its 2023 Country Focus: Viva el cine español! A new generation of Spanish filmmakers have been making waves around the world and the Festival proudly celebrates that vitality.

A collection of premieres will provide a window into a modern Spain dealing with the legacy of the Franco years, caught between urban living and a hankering for a return to the land, and still confronting eternal questions of love, family and loss.

The titles screening include the heart-breaking social drama On The Fringe with Penélope Cruz and Luis Tosar, gripping true-life tale Prison 77 and Lullaby, a film championed by Pedro Almodóvar as ‘undoubtedly the best debut in Spanish cinema for years’.

The return of GFF’s ever-popular Retrospective strand, which screens 10 free films during the festival. In the Driving Seat showcases films where women take charge of their lives, setting off into the unknown seeking adventure, freedom and self-discovery.

The films selected span more than eight decades and range from Claudette Colbert as a runaway heiress in It Happened One Night and Holly Hunter’s intrepid Scotswoman in The Piano to Audrey Hepburn’s incognito princess in Roman Holiday and Faye Dunaway’s Depression-era bank robber in Bonnie And Clyde.

For updates on city centre life, follow the #LoveGlasgow hashtag across social media for inspiration, city guides, what’s on listings, days and night out ideas this spring.