Glasgow Short Film Festival opens with film celebrating Hot Mess

Glasgow Short Film Festival can probably lay claim to putting on the coolest parties on the Scottish film scene, and they’ve found the perfect opening film this year: The Disco - A Portrait of Simon Eilbeck. 

For the uninitiated, Eilbeck is the DJ behind Glasgow’s legendary dance party Hot Mess, which has been giving queer people in Scotland an alternative club night to the mainstream gay scene since 2010. “You don’t have to be queer to come to Hot Mess,” Eilbeck has said, “but you probably will be by the time you leave.”

The Disco is the first work for cinema by Scottish experimental moving image artist Alex Hetherington and is described by GSFF as “a sound and image portrait of Queer d/Deaf DJ Simon Eilbeck formed from 16mm film and location sound recordings encountering members of the Queer, Trans, alternative and non-binary communities who gather at his monthly disco Hot Mess in Glasgow, Scotland.”

Simon Eilbeck in Alex Hetherington's The Disco

Hetherington has said that Hot Mess was once a “personal haven” for him during tough times – as the dance party has been and continues to be for many others. “When I had kind of lost faith in my own community… Hot Mess brought me back to life,” Hetherington told GSFF. Don’t expect a straight-up portrait or a traditional documentary. Hetherington has described The Disco instead as a series of “poetical observations” of the club night and Eilbeck.

“I don't like documentary films that enter someone's life too far and try to glean out something that's not my business,” said the filmmaker. “I told Simon that I wasn’t interested in his d/Deafness as such, but in his experience at the centre of the whirlpool; as this calm presence who fills the space but doesn’t necessarily experience it as we do.”

We’re told The Disco pulls on many cinematic references, including Hours for Jerome by Nathaniel Dorsky, Wittgenstein by Derek Jarman and RaMell Ross’s documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening. The works of experimental Belgian composer Henri Pousseur and queer academic Judith Butler are also in the mix. The Disco also reflects on the current tensions faced by LGBTQ+ people with trans- and queer-phobia on the rise, but it’s also a celebration of the community that’s formed on Hot Mess’s dancefloor through queer dreaming, care, hapticality and joy.

GSFF also announced today that it’ll be spreading its footprint to the west end of Glasgow via a new partnership with Grosvenor Picture Theatre on Ashton Lane, which will be the home for several screenings in the 2025 programme, including The Scottish premiere of Josefine, an animated opera inspired by Franz Kafka’s short story Josefine the Singer, screening in partnership with Scottish Opera.

Festival Director Matt Lloyd says he’s looking forward to seeing Hetherington’s film projected with great sound and a huge image on GFT’s biggest cinema screen. “The Disco is a beautiful, reflective portrait, an intoxicating meld of sound and image that speaks to our values of solidarity and inclusivity, and captures the unique energy of Glasgow,” says Lloyd. “We’re honoured to be unveiling it at the eighteenth edition of the festival. And whilst we’re devastated not to be in our lifelong home venue CCA this year, its temporary closure has given us the opportunity to stretch our legs and visit the West End for the first time.”

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The Disco opens Glasgow Short Film Festival 2025 on 19 Mar. Tickets are available from glasgowshort.org now

The next Hot Mess club nights take place at Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh, 7 Feb and The Poetry Club, Glasgow, 8 Feb