Five to see at GFF, 23 Feb: Green Room & more

Today (23 Feb) at Glasgow Film Festival offers up a punk v Nazi siege thriller (Green Room), a love letter to a city (I Am Belfast) and Aleksandr Sokurov's latest night at the museum (Francofonia).

I Am Belfast

GFT, 3.30pm

This bittersweet paean to his hometown is Mark Cousins’ best film yet – it’s also his most beautiful, with painterly visuals courtesy of master cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

Read our review of I Am Belfast

That Demon Within

GFT, 6.15pm

Hong Kong action auteur Dante Lam delivers a ghoulish supernatural thriller. Based on a real-life criminal case, it's reportedly his darkest work to date. 

Read how Dante Lam saved our Book editor's life in his article in praise of Hong Kong action cinema.

Videogame Empty

The Art School, 8pm

Watching other people play video games is about as much fun as gastric flu – unless those people give a hilarious running commentary. Burnistoun’s Robert Florence is your host, and his annual empty is now a GFF institution.

Read Robert Florence muse of the "golden age of gaming"

Green Room

GFT, 8.45pm

Truth be told, we weren’t as bowled over by Blue Ruin as many were, but director Jeremy Saulnier’s punks v neo-Nazis followup has us hooked thank solely to one casting wrinkle: Sir Patrick Stewart, reportedly the nicest man in show business, plays a brutal white supremacist. You have to see that, right? Make it so.

We spoke to Saulnier ahead of the screening about against-type casting of Patrick Stewart:

“I think it was certainly a nice shift for him to show a different side to his craft. I consider [his character] Darcy to be very practical. He’s never sinister in his intentions, he’s just brutally indifferent when it comes to his own interests. He suddenly loses his cool once in a while, but it’s through language or little tics. It’s not through a big monologue, but I think it’s more powerful. And Patrick definitely remarked on set that this is the quietest he’s ever worked in his life. So that was fun.”

Read the full interview in Issue 3 of the CineSkinny. Avaliable at all GFF venues now

Francofonia

CCA, 9pm

Russian genius Aleksandr Sokurov has another night at the museum – this time the Louvre. It’s basically like one of those Ben Stiller movies, but with a history PhD.