Glasgow Short Film Festival goes online

The Glasgow Short Film Festival was meant to begin today (18 March) but has been among the many events cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The show will go on though… online that is

Article by Jamie Dunn | 18 Mar 2020
  • Maneater

It’s been depressing to see so many events we were looking forward to called off or venues we love close their doors due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, but what’s been most heartening is to see everyone’s spirit to still keep connected while we prepare to hunker down to beat this pandemic. Venues like The Hug & Pint will be bringing their delicious vegan food straight to your door, musicians have started streaming gigs from their homes and studios and Glasgow Short Film Festival, one of our favourite events on the cultural calendar, will be taking some of this year’s postponed 13th edition online.

The festival was due to kick off today (18 March) but has been rescheduled until late summer (19-23 Aug) due to the ongoing public health crisis. But short film fans can still get a taste of the GSFF experience as the festival will be going online from today until Sunday 22 March, premiering ten shorts online.

These films will be released online two per day – one a Scottish film, the other from the international programme. Each film will be free to view for one day only, although the organisers would welcome any donations, which will go directly towards the costs of restaging this year’s festival. Details of how to donate will be posted alongside the films.

We don’t know exactly what GSFF has in store: each film will be a surprise until it goes live at 8am each morning until 22 March. The first two films will be How The Earth Must See Itself (A Thirling), by Lucy Cash and Simone Kenyon, and Swedish film Maneater from Sandra Isacsson and Caroline Wallén.

Here’s GSFF co-director Sanne Jehoul's introduction to the first two films:

How The Earth Must See Itself (A Thirling), by Lucy Cash and Simone Kenyon, produced by National Theatre of Scotland and Scottish Sculpture Workshop, is drawn from the fourth programme in our Scottish Competition: We Are Guided. Inspired by Nan Shepherd’s lyrical landmark of nature writing, The Living Mountain, it’s a poetic work set in the Scottish Cairngorms, accompanied by a soundtrack by Hanna Tuulikki.

“Sandra Isacsson and Caroline Wallén’s Maneater is plucked from our late night For Shorts and Giggles programme. In a funny and delightfully perverse commentary on the male gaze, the two female directors instruct a group of middle-aged men to eat bananas and follow some questionable directions to see how far they’ll push themselves.”

Head to https://glasgowshort.org to watch