Glasgow Short Film Festival reveals Scottish Competition films for 2026

In the February issue of The Skinny, you can read an interview with Glasgow Film's new Head of Programme Paul Gallagher, where he celebrates the breadth of feature filmmaking in Scotland. That breadth exemplified by this year's GFF opener and closer: Everybody to Kenmure Street, Felipe Bustos Sierra’s small-scale, hyper-local documentary celebrating community and solidarity, and California Schemin’, James McAvoy’s swaggering, feel-good underdog tale made on a huge canvas. For an even more diverse snapshot of the creativity and invention on the local filmmaking scene, look no further than Glasgow Short Film Festival.

As ever, GSFF will celebrate filmmaking from across the world, but its Scottish Short Competition remains the festival’s hottest ticket. Today, the 22 homegrown films that have been selected for this year's lineup have been revealed, and they run the gamut from tales of unconventional relationships and memorable first dates to slices of small-town Scottish life and the separation anxiety of a nervy pet.

New films from Will Anderson, Duncan Cowles, Miranda Stern & more

There are several filmmakers familiar to GSFF audiences on the list. Documentarian Duncan Cowles, who's twice walked off with the Scottish Comp award, returns with Neil Armstrong and the Langholmites, which looks back at a curious footnote in history: the day the first man to set foot on the moon visited the small mill town of Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway. As ever with Cowles, expect a playful and deeply humane approach, a deadpan narration and plenty of awkward humour.

Neil Armstrong and the Langholmites, Dir. Duncan Cowles, image courtesy of GSFF

Cowles is joined by another double-winner at GSFF: Will Anderson. In his solo work, Anderson is known for his 2D digital animation, but in Existential Greg he’s using 3D digital techniques to create a feline character that looks almost indistinguishable from a stop-motion puppet.

Miranda Stern took home the top prize in the Scottish Comp more recently, winning in 2023 for her devastating documentary Clean, in which the filmmaker documented her own efforts to come off methadone after six years. Her new work Static, a fiction film, is also concerned with addiction and follows two friends caught in a spiral of drug use and co-dependency. Static was made as part of the inaugural Sean Connery Talent Lab, a filmmaking scheme set up by the late actor’s family to help nurture Scottish filmmaking talent. Another Sean Connery Talent Lab alumnus to make the GSFF programme is Ryan Pollock. His film, Gowk, is reportedly a poetic slice of social realism following a young lad whose eyes are opened to his family history when his mother goes into hospital.

GSFF audience will also well remember Leyla Coll-O’Reilly for her brilliant, deeply uncomfortable Groom, about a young girl being groomed, in more ways than one, by her new boss at a beauty salon. Her new short, Four Seconds Flat, centres on a young couple, called Adam and Eve, whose playful wrestling in bed suddenly turns sinister.

Sleazy Tiger, Dir. James Ley | image courtesy of GSFF

One of the highlights of GSFF 2025 was Gas and Electricity, Daniel Kelly's vivid, bittersweet portrait of an ex-couple reconnecting over a fleeting weekend. The Paisley-born filmmaker is back with another study of modern romance with Monogamy, which concerns the trials and tribulations of a couple attempting to open up their relationship by going on separate dates. Another exploration of love and sex that looks set to be a GSFF fave is Sleazy Tiger, James Ley’s wild comedy about a young man having an identity crisis while on a date with the man of his dreams. Referencing everything from Beetlejuice to Trainspotting, Ley’s film asks that age-old question: can one be both husband material and a horny harlot?

You’ll usually find work from the Scottish Documentary Institute’s Bridging the Gap series at GSFF, and this year, look out for Klarissa Webster’s Each to their Own World, which offers an intimate insight into the lives of deaf people who've been forced to navigate a society built for the ‘fully abled'. Other Bridging the Gap docs to check out are Community Theatre, Lewis Baillie's lyrical, gorgeously shot portrait of an am-dram group in a working-class Fife town, and Maryam Haddadi’s tender and captivating Between Us, in which the filmmaker and her four-year-old son take turns on the camera to map the emotional terrain of their lives as migrants. The above is just a few of the titles in the competition; read the full list below...

GSFF 2026 Scottish Competition: The full list

Between Us, Dir. Maryam Haddadi
Birds, Dir. Fin Bain
Community Theatre, Dir. Lewis Baillie
DÌLEAS, Dir. Emily Munro
Distance to the Moon, Dir. Victoria Watson, Sacha Kyle
Dreamscape, Dir. Meray Diner
Each to their Own World, Dir. Klarissa Webster
Existential Greg, Dir. Will Anderson
Four Seconds Flat, Dir. Leyla Coll-O'Reilly
Gowk, Dir. Ryan Pollock
Guttin' Quines, Dir. Duncan Forbes
Lennox-Friedkin Tape #004, Dir. Matt Benson
Mallen Streak, Dir. Ruby Cedar
Monogamy, Dir. Daniel Kelly
Neil Armstrong and the Langholmites, Dir. Duncan Cowles
nobody’s word, Dir. Camara Taylor
Notes from Brook House, Dir. Alex Nevill
On the Twelfth Day of Findom, Dir. Caitlin Black, Joanne Thomson
Ritchie, Dir. Anton McPhilemy
Sleazy Tiger, Dir. James Ley
Static, Dir. Miranda Stern
The Figure in the Carpet, Dir. Fibi Cowley

Meet the Jury, and GSFF's Young Scottish Filmmaker Prize

The jury with the unenviable task of choosing the best film from the above are Luce Grosjean, founder and director of Miyu Distribution, a leading international distribution company for animated short films; Federica Pugliese, Artistic Director of Lago Film Festival; and Jen Davies, co-founder of Conic Films Ltd., the brilliant Glasgow-based distribution company who've put celebrated films like On Falling, Souleymane’s Story and Dragonfly into the world. Their next release is the aforementioned Everybody to Kenmure Street.

Also announced today are the eight films competing for The Young Scottish Filmmaker Prize, GSFF’s award open to fresh-faced filmmakers aged 18 to 25. The prize is split into two categories. One award goes to a filmmaker who hasn’t received formal education, training or funding to produce their film. The second goes to a filmmaker who made their film with some form of formal support, be that at film school, or as part of a film fund or organisation. The eight films competing are:

Aster, Dir. Chloe Hebert
Blueland, Dir. Fran Spaeth
Dog Hair Sticks to Everything, Dir. Megan McRitchie
Grado and the Next Big Star, Dir. Todd McFadyen
Mother’s Influence, Dir. Meg Wriggles
On the Backburner, Dir. Krisztián Kajtár
Second Skin, Dir. Jack-Murray Birrell
We Walk at Night, Dir. Agnes Athley

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The 19th edition of Glasgow Short Film Festival runs from 18 to 22 March 2026. More info at glasgowshort.org