Category: General chat and trailers

Loot drop at the Havan Glasgow Film Festival

That’s the in-person screenings for the French Film Festival over, but they will return in a few weeks with an online selection, so keep your eyes peeled!

Man, Africa In Motion was ace again this year. Think next year I’m gonna take the fortnight off work like I do for the GFF, because there were so many other films I planned on seeing that I just couldn’t fit in.

This blog celebrates the wide range of excellent films shown at the Glasgow Film Festival, as well as other film festivals shown in Glasgow. Some reviews are long, some reviews are short. All are intended to give you an idea of what you might like to see, and take a chance on something a little different.

Ok, so when I first started this blog, I envisioned covering the GFF and only occasionally posting the odd interesting film review in between times. But certain events have changed things. Can you guess what event I mean?

So Covid has already changed how I interact with cinema. The pandemic is still not over, but it has changed how festivals are delivered, and the cinema industry as a whole. Festivals moved totally or partially online, giving people around the country the possibility of participating in distant festivals. Cinemas have co-operated in sharing films from one another’s festivals to give people a real in-cinema experience while bringing them distant festival goodies. And cinema and film as a whole has needed our support like never before.

This has made me take a number of decisions:

1. In addition to the GFF, I will cover partner festivals. If Sheffield reciprocally carry GFF films, I’ll support their films when they come to Glasgow. This seems fair to me, plus a great opportunity to show just what is available right here in Glasgow because of the work of Glasgow Film.
   
2. While I have previously covered smaller festivals that take place in Glasgow, usually with some support from Glasgow Film, I’m going to make the effort to cover them more thoroughly, as I don’t want to see these smaller festivals dying out while times are tough.
   
3. All this means I’m just gonna be seeing more films and posting more frequently generally.
   
4. I want to spread word about the GFF and good cinema more widely. Because I feel like this is a critical time for cinema in the UK. and because changes under Covid have made these films much more widely accessible. This unfortunately means dipping my toe into social media, which is a complete garbage fire I wanted to avoid at all costs. However, it’s where people are so I’m gonna have to go there. I’ve set up an Instagram, so you can follow me there if you want.
   
5. The only donations I’ve ever asked for on this blog were to go directly to Glasgow Film to support the GFF. However, as I’m now just going to much more film than ever before, I have decided to add a Donate button. In effect, you’ll just be donating money to Glasgow Film via me, but it will allow me to keep doing what I’m doing on this blog. There is no obligation to donate, I’m just putting it there as an option, a tip jar of sorts.
   

So yeah, things have changed since I first started the blog. And I’ve enjoyed writing for it much more than I realised I would. And where you’ve given feedback, you’ve been kind enough to be positive, which has been gratifying too. So here’s to continuing in that vein!

The GFT is scheduled to reopen on 24th May! After a year shut, I’m ready to take a thermos and sleeping bag and live there.

The Glasgow Film Festival will return in 2022 from March 2nd-13th. That’s the dates plugged into the diary already.

A mere 4 days after it officially concluded. Well, that was some year. 63 features and 4 shorts, that’s a record total for me. And as a proportion of all the films shown at the festival, it’s probably the highest I will ever get at 91%.

I mostly stuck to my schedule, but I was running late every day, which is probably why I finished late. Turns out it wasn’t any help with more regular eating and sleeping. I still mostly existed on cold sandwiches, and my sleeping was even more all over the place because there was no fixed times for me to sleep and wake. Still, loved every minute of it.

I thought I might feel as bit, you know, disappointed because we weren’t all together at the cinema with the same atmosphere, but in fact it was surprisingly well done, and the movies so well curated, I feel like I got 90% of the experience of a normal festival. All the wee Q&As, the introductions, the daily rundown on what was being shown each day, it did make you feel like you still getting that connection with the festival folk.

Thoroughly enjoyed myself. Off now to sleep for a week.

The winner of this year’s Audience Award was Sweetheart! Yeay! Nice to see queer female filmmakers and stories getting recognition.

For the first time ever, I’ve watched all the Audience Award movies! My pick would be Jumbo, but I’ll be happy if any of them win so long as it’s not Shorta or Redemption of a Rogue.