Glasgow Youth Film Festival announces 2018 programme

The tenth edition of GYFF will feature mint fresh indie titles Skate Kitchen and Anna and the Apocalypse, alongside revivals of Superbad and School of Rock

Article by Jamie Dunn | 15 Aug 2018

Celebrating both its tenth anniversary edition and coinciding with Scotland’s Year of Young People, the brimming programme for the Glasgow Youth Film Festival – curated by a group of sharp Young Programmers aged 15-19, who’re mentored on a year round basis at GFT – mixes both mint fresh indie titles with recent classics and a pair of free to attend creative workshops. Proceedings should kick off in grand and gory style with the riotous Anna and the Apocalypse on 14 September. Featuring the unlikely combination of high school romance, teen comedy and zombie horror, this Scottish-set fantasy (shot just down the road from the GFT in Port Glasgow) is a complete one-off. Oh, and we forgot to mention the best part: it’s a musical.

Another eye-catching screening is the Scottish premiere of Skate Kitchen, the first fiction feature from Crystal Moselle, who made the brilliant documentary The Wolfpack. A hit at this year's Sundance film festival, it's a vibrant and effortlessly cool drama following a group of young female skateboarders in New York, played by a real-life skateboarding crew, and some of these kickarse young women, along with Moselle, will be in Glasgow for this screening for a post-film Q&A. Variety called Skate Kitchen “an irresistible hangout movie, offering a thoroughly millennial, vérité spin on '80s skater classics like Thrashin'."

Similarly unmissable is Never Goin’ Back, a day-in-the-life film following two teen girls who want to make some quick cash and to escape their boring lives in the suburbs. We’re told it’s both crude and charming, with shades of the misbehaving BFFs from Broad City. Another new title that looks intriguing is Worlds of Ursula K Le Guin, a documentary about the late fantasy writer of the title. Filmed before her death, it sees Le Guin in discussion with other masters of the fantasy genre like Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell, reflecting on her career and musing on the impact of feminism on her writing.

The young programmers also have some – relatively – old films in the offing too. Most of them would have still been in nappies when Richard Linklater’s School of Rock was released in 2003. It stars Jack Black as an imposter substitute teacher passing on his love of rock’n’roll to some uptight preppy school kids (“I have been touched by your kids... and I'm pretty sure that I've touched them,” Black’s character tells the children's mortified parents), and this joyful comedy gets pride of place in GYFF as its closing movie. As well as the screening, this special event at Blythswood Hall will be preceded by a battle of the bands competition! Info on how to enter your school band in the competition is below.

Other highlights look to be a late night screening of Greg Mottola’s hilarious and heartfelt comedy Superbad, featuring a baby-faced Michael Cera and Jonah Hill; anime in the form of Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and Mary and the Witch’s Flower; an intimate glimpse at adolescent angst in French doc Young Solitude; and a programme of short films from across the globe created by young people, titled Shorts: Journey to Stardom.

“The GYFF Young Programmers have curated a diverse and high quality programme of film that I’m sure has something for everyone,” said Sarah Emery, Glasgow Youth Film Festival Coordinator, “alongside two free to attend workshops to help inspire the next generation of young filmmakers: Alternative Careers in Film and How to Make Your First Film.”


GYFF takes place 14-16 Sep. The full GYFF line-up can be found at glasgowfilm.org/gyff. Tickets for all events are now on sale from GFT Box Office and glasgowfilm.org/gyff

GYFF is looking for Glasgow school bands to take part in a Battle of the Bands competition at their School of Rock event on Sun 16 Sep

Does your school band have what it takes? Send us a video clip of your band in action to gyff@glasgowfilm.org by Mon 27 Aug to be in with a chance of taking part!