Cultural Calendar – March 2015

A guide to our picks of the CCA programme

Feature by Will Fitzpatrick | 05 Mar 2015

Free time: it's a drag, isn't it? All those dauntingly empty hours to fill, the overwhelming vastness of the cultural landscape to wade through... it's enough to send a poor soul spiralling into an existential black hole. Worried that you too will be found on the precipice, releasing a primal howl of 'THERE'S NOTHING TO DO' into the unforgiving ether? Fear not – your dear ol' buddy The Skinny is here to help, and as usual, Glasgow CCA has a pretty phenomenal programme of events on the horizon. These carefully selected highlights should ensure your schedule remains id-satisfyingly full.

First up is the unmissable GLITCH (19-28 Mar), a QTIPOC film festival – that's queer, trans, intersex and people of colour, for those of you not paying attention at the back there. Run by Digital Desperados, a local group focussed on free film-making courses for women of colour, entry is resolutely free of charge, with screenings, Q&As and workshops all high on the agenda. Opening night sees a facinating array of shorts before an acoustic performance from Toronto's Vivek Shraya, who'll also be reading from his book She Of The Mountains. Our additional picks include the documentary Audre Lord: The Berlin Years, 1984-92 and Hong Kong romance Happy Together, but that's merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of remarkable movies on offer here.

On 21 Mar, the good folks from Randolph's Leap present the third in their series of I Can't Dance To This Music all-dayers. Indiepoppers, get excited: the Fortuna POP! label is particularly well-represented, with Edinburgh boy-done-good Withered Hand topping the bill alongside the day-glo vivaciousness of East London's Tigercats. Poet and comedian Andrew Learmonth also heads a list of stand-ups scheduled to perform, so ensure your chuckle muscles are suitably warmed up.

Meanwhile, the Goethe-Institut and Alliance Française continue their Franco-German Film Series with Ramon Zürcher's debut feature The Strange Little Cat (31 Mar). Described by the ever-quotable Roger Ebert as "like reading a short story by Chekhov or Ionesco, that was translated by Kafka and staged by Bertolt Brecht," it's a tale of the mundane and the familial, with allusions to the darker details lying underneath: manna from heaven for fans of esoteric European cinema.

Further ahead, the Counterflows festival returns to Glasgow, providing a spotlight on what's loosely termed 'experimental' music. If word association has got you fretting about unlistenable free jazz noise, then broaden those horizons, daddio: as one of the host venues, the CCA brings you some of the brightest brushstrokes from a remarkably vivid palette. Rio's raw power trio Chinese Cookie Poets bring their serrated blasts of math-tinged, post-punk ferociousness to town (2 Apr), with German multimedia artist Florian Hecker (3 Apr) not far behind – his thoroughly immersive work deals in electroacoustic pulses, influenced heavily by post-war modernity. There's also a collaborative residency between two of electronic music's most forward-thinking practitioners, Berlin's Andrea Neumann and local boy Adam Campbell (28 Mar-5 Apr), plus talks, film screenings, DJ nights and more. Not too shabby, all told.

Like art? Love t'wireless? This next one's for you. A combination of temporary FM radio station and art installation, Radiophrenia (13-20 Apr) brings together a plethora of bold ideas that challenge the traditions of the medium, transmitted via both pre-recorded and live broadcasts in front of a theatre audience. Much of the content was selected through an open call for programming proposals, with the intention of providing a fascinating alternative to the world of mainstream radio. This may not resolve your concerns about the nature of existence, but it'll certainly be bloody brilliant.


More from The Skinny:


the skinny's scottish art editor provides his picks from the month's event highlights

everything you need to know about the best gigs in scotland for march 2015

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