Scotland Film Event Highlights – May 2013

Everyone loves a bad movie and Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) is screening three of the very worst this month. First there's Plan 9 From Outer Space (10 May), which features the last footage of horror legend Bela Lugosi. This movie, directed by lovable Z-movie hack Edward D. Wood Jr, is so ineptly made (a chiropractor unconvincingly stands in as Lugosi's double, wobbly flying saucers are courtesy of a hobby kit) that some critics have claimed it an avant-garde masterpiece. There's a double-bill on 12 May, when Troll 2, a film without any trolls in it, shows alongside documentary Best Worst Movie, which examines just how and why the former is so popular. Finally, Tommy Wiseau's melodrama The Room returns on 24 May; don't forget to bring plastic spoons.

Institut Français d'Ecosse in Edinburgh is hosting a French noir season, screening film adaptations of novels by crime author Auguste Le Breton. Rififi (14 May), a gripping 1955 heist thriller famous for a half-hour robbery sequence that takes place in near-silence, is proceeded by a special Q&A session with Pierre Fourniaud, General Director of the French publishing house La Manufacture de Livres. The season also includes Chnouf (21 May), Bob the Gambler (28 May), and The Sicilian Clan (4 Jun).

DCA in Dundee, GFT, and Grosvenor in Glasgow are hosting a special screening of Shane Meadows' documentary The Stone Roses: Made of Stone on 30 May. The band reformed after sixteen years in 2012, and Meadows was on hand to capture the preparations for their eagerly anticipated reunion gigs at Heaton Park in Manchester. These screenings include live satellite red carpet footage, and are followed by a Q&A session with the director and 'special guests.'

To everyone who claims they don't cry at movies, the Filmhouse in Edinburgh has a challenge for you. Voted Scotland's Favourite Tearjerker, recent Oscar winner Up is screening on 19 May. The 2009 Pixar movie is a delicate, beautifully animated, devastating account of old age; luckily a talking dog does lighten the mood. The event is free but ticketed, so book early to ensure your seat, and don't forget the tissues.

BAFTA Scotland and Glasgow Film Office present a special event, the BAFTA Masterclass, at the CCA in Glasgow on 16 May, examining why the city has become such a popular film location, having been used in productions of such American films as Cloud Atlas, World War Z, and Fast & Furious 6. The event, a lively panel discussion, is sure to be both interesting and informative. [Becky Bartlett]

Dundead returns to DCA 2-5 May. As well as the usual line-up of classics (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), UK premières (Would You Rather) and mint-fresh horrors (John Dies at the End, The Lords of Salem, Kiss of the Damned), Dundead is having a mini retrospective of America's finest living filmmaker, Brian De Palma. The trio of the films screening are BDP's giddy horror-cum-sex-comedy Dressed to Kill, feverish political thriller Blow Out and his insane meta-Hitchcock homage Body Double. [Jamie Dunn]