Glasgow Film Festival 2008

Forget Cannes, Sundance or even, dare we say it, Edinburgh this month: the Glasgow Film Festival is back from February 14 – 24, with over 20,000 people expected to attend screenings of over 100 films across the city.

Feature by Jonathan Melville | 05 Feb 2008

Gala Premieres

Like any film festival worth its salt(ed popcorn), there are premieres and red carpet events aplenty. Slated to open proceedings is Woody Allen's latest, Cassandra's Dream, starring Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as brothers with serious financial problems. Craig Gillespie's Lars and the Real Girl stars Ryan Gosling as a young man who buys a sex doll off the internet for a "meaningful" relationship, only to find the whole town deciding to buy into the ruse. Other recommendations include John Sayles' Honeydripper (a musical drama set in 1950s Alabama), and Michael Haneke's Americanised remake of his own Funny Games.

It's a Wonderful World

What could be better on a damp day in Glasgow that taking off to some far flung corner of the globe via one of the following offerings? Canada's The Tracey Fragments tells its story via hundreds of on-screen fragments of pictures taken from the thoughts and dreams of 15-year-old Tracey (Ellen Page). As she goes through puberty, her mind getting more and more confused, the fragments fracture even more. Bizarre, challenging and exhausting are just three words that seem to sum up this film best. Not another Vin Diesel sequel, XXY is the story of a 15-year-old hermaphrodite coping with her condition. Sensitive handling of the subject matter and a strong central performance has led the film to being forwarded as Argentina's entry to the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2008 Oscars. From France/Lebanon comes Caramel, a romantic comedy centred on the daily lives of five Lebanese women of different religions and ages who work in a beauty salon in Beirut, while South Africa's Bunny Chow sees three comedians and a weird guy named Cope embark on a raucous weekend journey to Oppikoppi, South Africa's biggest rock festival.

The State of Independents

Doing their own thing outside the studio system are a number of American indie pictures, celebrated in the State of Independents strand. Standing out from the crowd is In Search of a Midnight Kiss, a sweet yet unsaccharine tale of boy randomly meeting girl in LA on New Year's Eve: low on budget but high on charm, this is one to book early for. If ever there were a poster boy for the indie movement it's Steve Buscemi. With the tagline "Change your outlook, change your life", the Buscemi directed Lonesome Jim stars Casey Affleck as the titular Jim who has to move back in with his parents after deciding he can't go it alone. It's taken a while for the film to make it to UK shores, so take the chance to see it while you can. Teeth takes as its premise that the lead character, Dawn, has the fabled vagina dentata or "toothed vagina". This leads to various gory situations (there's more than one castration on show here) alongside some wicked one-liners and campy laughs.

Once Upon a Time in the East

Eastern Europe is the focus of this strand, with countries such as Romania, Poland and Hungary featured. The Czech Republic's Official Submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category at this year's Oscars, I Served the King of England is an adaptation of a novel of the same name. A darkly comic tale, it tells of a Czech waiter who marries a Nazi gym teacher during WWII. Winning the Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes in 2007 comes California Dreamin', a Romanian drama about a railway chief who delays a NATO train transporting military equipment during the war in Kosovo in 1999. Director Cristian Nemescu tragically died while the film was still in post-production. A hit in its native Poland, Testosterone is a bawdy comedy described as the "Polish American Pie". Children of Glory commemorates Hungary's 1956 Revolution, when Soviet tanks destroyed Hungary as the national polo team fought for glory at the Melbourne Olympics in what became known as the bloodiest water polo match in history.

Great Scots

After a healthy dose of internationalism, it's always good to get a bit introspective. The GFF celebrates Scottish talent past and present with the Great Scots strand. One of the most publicised Scottish pictures in 2007 due to its shooting schedule (11 days) and budget (£5000) was The Inheritance. It tells of two estranged brothers who travel from Edinburgh to Skye to claim the inheritance left to them by their late father. Director Charlie Belleville promises to look at brotherhood, identity and the stereotype of the Scotsman's inability to express his feelings. BAFTA-award winning Consenting Adults started life as a commission for BBC Four. Set in the 1950s, the film is the story of John Wolfenden's personal and professional struggle to reform the British law concerning homosexuality. There are some weighty themes here that are handled well by a top-notch cast, including Charles Dance and Glasgow's own Sean Biggerstaff. Away from films made in the noughties, Scotland's past glories are also remembered. Scots director Frank Lloyd (1886–1960) is represented by a screening of Oliver Twist (1926) while there's also a chance to catch that perennial favourite, Bill Forsyth's Local Hero (1985).

The Best of British

Talent from across the country is celebrated in The Best of British. Winner of the FIPRESCI International Critics' Award at the 2007 Times BFI London Film Festival, Unrelated is the story of a woman (Kathryn Worth) escaping an unhappy marriage who takes refuge with a friend's family on holiday. Screen International called writer/director Joanna Hogg's first feature "refreshing and unusual". Originally made as a short film in 2005, director Justin Edgar has gone back to the drawing board to remake Special People as a feature. Co-writer and star Dominic Coleman returns as Jasper, a filmmaker assigned to help a group of wheelchair-users make a movie. In Outlanders, Adam travels from Poland to London to visit his brother and former Polish football star Jan, who is now embroiled in the world of illegal migrant workers. From London we travel to the Arctic Circle in Asif Kapadia's Far North, where Michelle Yeoh, Sean Bean and some spectacular locations compete for the viewers' attention.

Bette Davis Retrospective

With the centenary of Bette Davis' birth falling in 2008, the GFF celebrates with the screening of a selection of her films, spanning six decades. From the lesser known pictures such as 1939's tearjerker The Old Maid and romantic drama Dark Victory (co-starring former US President Ronald Reagan) through bonafide classics All About Eve (1950), Now Voyager (1942) and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) to her penultimate picture, The Whales of August (1987), this is a truly comprehensive retrospective.

European Cinema

European cinema is well represented in 2008 with eleven films vying for your hard earned. Among the favourites here is the Italian One Hundred Nails, which tells of a young professor from the University of Bologna who retreats to the countryside and becomes embroiled in the local inhabitants' lives and loves. From France comes The Last Mistress, a period piece looking at love and war between the sexes. White Night is a Danish psychological thriller about Ulrich, a workaholic whose life takes a drastic turn when he is involved in a fatal accident. One other worth looking out for is the Antonio Banderas directed Summer Rain, a Spanish coming-of-age film set in the 1970s.

Reel Life

Documentaries are often the beating heart of a festival, a chance for filmmakers to take a look at, and comment on, the world around us. Crazy Love is a love (and hate) story about Linda Riss and Burt Pagach: sixteen years after he threw acid in her face, blinding her, the couple married. The documentary tries to find out just what made her forgive him. Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows is a Martin Scorsese-narrated homage to the legendary RKO horror producer. Following on from last year's Ian Curtis biopic, Control, Grant Gee focuses on the music of Joy Division in his latest documentary.

The Glasgow Film Festival runs from the 14th to 28th of February at the GFT and venues across Glasgow. Special Saver Passes are available now - see any 10 films for £30. See www.glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk/and www.gft.org.uk for details.

http://www.glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk/