What's On Scotland 5-12 May: Yardwords, Dundead & more
SWG3 hosts a celebration of Scottish street art, things get scary at Dundead film festival at DCA, plus a bunch of gigs, exhibitions and theatre to check out
Street art has been exploding in Glasgow over the last few years and that’s partly due to the success of Yardworks, the festival of urban art that returns to SWG3 this weekend. Yardworks sees the arts venue’s Galvanizers Yard transformed into an open-air gallery and its concrete and brick walls turned into a vibrant canvas of colour and creativity. Some of the most celebrated street artists from around the world will be heading to the city to take part – think Jay Kaes, .EPOD, Morf, Aches, and KMG – and they’ll be sharing space and ideas with homegrown artists.
Across the festival you’ll be able to see murals being created and layered up in real-time, take part in art workshops and activities and tuck into a great selection of street food. This year’s festival also marks the official launch of Yardworks Studio.
SWG3, Glasgow, 6-7 May, swg3.tv
ADVERTISEMENT / Surrogate Productions presents Who Killed My Father
Touring various venues across Scotland until 30 May
Growing up gay in a small town in France, Édouard endured the violence and homophobia of his abusive father. In 2000, his father suffered an accident which left him bed-bound. Now, Édouard confronts his father, uncovering a connection between political decisions and his father’s broken body.
Who Killed My Father is an intimate declaration of love from son to father and a call for social justice. Based on the book by Édouard Louis and adapted and directed for the stage by Nora Wardell.
Tour dates and tickets at surrogate-productions.com/
SQIFF's Trans-Generational Tour
Various venues. 11 May-16 Jun
The mighty Scottish Queer International Film Festival is hitting the road with a travelling programme of films exploring trans experiences. Included in the lineup are Framing Agnes, which uncovers buried trans histories, and Trans Parenting, a programme of short films portraying queer parenthood. For full details, head to sqiff.org
Dundead
Dundee Contemporary Arts. 11-14 May
DCA’s horror festival Dundead is back and its opener couldn’t be better: Andrew Cumming’s “stone age horror” The Origin. Also look out for Satanic Hispanics, an anthology film from some of Latin America’s most exciting young horror directors, and a mini-retrospective dedicated to the master of body horror, David Cronenberg.
Zineb Sedira: Can't You See the Sea Changing
Dundee Contemporary Arts. until 6 Aug
Zineb Sedira comes to DCA with her first UK project in 12 years, an exhibition concerned with shifting coastlines and geopolitical borders. Blending film, photography and installation, the show sees Sedira draw upon her personal history and close connection to Algeria, France and the UK to explore ideas of identity, gender and collective memory.
bar italia
Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh. 11 May, 7pm
London trio bar italia come to Sneaky’s ahead of their debut album, Tracey Denim. Consisting of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton, they specialise in emotive indie, taking influence from the like of The Pastels and Josef K. Since the release of the single Nurse! back in April, the buzz around the band has been steadily growing – here’s your chance to see what the fuss is about.
ADVERTISEMENT / Pitch
Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Fringe. 2-28 Aug, 3.45pm
A bold, joyful, goal-scoring exploration of the relationship between football and the queer community. In the wake of the Qatar World Cup and in the midst of the 2023 Women's Tournament, Pitch blends documentary storytelling and theatre, investigating what it means to watch, play and love the beautiful game. Winner of the Pleasance's Charlie Hartill Fund 2023. Save 20% off tickets if you book before the end of May!
Tickets here
↪ Wes Anderson Retrospective
Glasgow Film Theatre. 7 May-5 Jul
Welcome to Wes's World. GFT are giving Hollywood’s most fastidious director plenty of love this spring ahead of his latest film, Asteroid City, will a full retrospective that takes in all ten of Anderson’s films, from 1996’s Bottle Rocket to 2021’s The French Dispatch. It all kicks off this weekend with Rushmore plus an intro from programmer Heather Bradshaw.
→ Love the Sinner
Tron Theatre, Glasgow. 11-13 May
Having started out as a poetry collection, Imogen Stirling’s Love the Sinner is transforming into a theatre show. The play follows embodiments of the Seven Sins as they negotiate the contemporary world. We’re told to expect Stirling’s lyricism to be blended with dynamic visuals and electronica for a mythic investigation into what it means to be human.
→ Matinee
CCA, Glasgow, 10 May; Summerhall, Edinburgh, 11 May, 7pm
As part of the CineSkinny Film Club, we're screening the sorely underseen Matinee, Joe Dante’s paean to the B-movie horrors he grew up watching as a kid. John Goodman is terrific in the film as a schlock director trying to tap into social anxiety around the Cold War and there’s a typically subversive streak to Dante’s knockabout comedy, which looks even sharper 30 years after its release.