A NEW restoration of Billy Connolly: Big Banana Feet is among the screenings which have been announced for Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) 2024.
The 20th edition of Scotland’s largest film festival will run from Wednesday, February 28 until Sunday, March 10 at Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) and other venues across the city.
Across 12 packed days, there will be more than 120 features with 11 world and international premieres, 69 UK premieres and 15 Scottish premieres with films from 44 countries.
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GFF will open with the UK premiere of Rose Glass’s new thriller Love Lies Bleeding starring Kristen Stewart and will close with the world premiere of Janey which follows comedian Janey Godley as she embarks on her final live tour following her cancer diagnosis.
The honest, moving and often hilarious documentary weaves together stories from her life with footage from her Not Dead Yet tour and features appearances from well-known faces including Nicola Sturgeon and Jimmy Carr.
World and international premieres include the new restoration of Billy Connolly: Big Banana Feet, the rarely seen 1976 documentary shot during the Big Yin’s 1975 tour of Ireland.
The film has been restored by the BFI in collaboration with director Murray Grigor from the only two 16mm prints known to exist.
Tummy Monster, a hallucinogenic black comedy by Glasgow director Ciaran Lyons, will also have its world premiere at the festival.
UK premieres include real-life father daughter duo Ewan and Clara McGregor taking a road trip in Bleeding Love and Josh O’Connor’s fantastical romance La Chimera which will take place at both GFF and nine partner cinemas across the UK.
Allison Gardner, CEO of Glasgow Film and Director of GFF, says she is “extremely proud” to have been part of all 20 editions of GFF.
She said: "What I like about this festival is there’s a great choice.
"You don’t always get that at other festivals. Some festivals are particularly focused on one area of expertise, but we are a broad church and for me there’s something for everyone because audiences are broad.
"GFT all year round we have different audiences for different things and what we try to do with the festival is bring all those audiences together.
"Essentially the festival is a showcase for what we do at GFT all year round so I think what makes us different from other festivals is having this unique venue, this unique city and the fact I think everybody is really friendly and we offer something for everyone."
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Allison says her personal highlights from the festival include Teacher’s Lounge, La Chimera, Sleep, You’ll Never Find Me, Woken, Bleeding Love, The Dead Don’t Hurt and The Home Game.
As well as celebrating the 20th edition of GFF, which was launched in 2005, this year’s festival will also be marking 85 years since the opening of Scotland’s first-ever purpose built arthouse cinema Cosmo and 50 years since it became GFT.
The popular free morning retrospective will return with Our Story So Far, a journey through 10 classic titles from each anniversary year.
From 1939, audiences will have the chance to see Mr Smith Goes to Washington or watch screen icon Greta Garbo in Ninotchka while screenings from 1974 will include The Godfather Part II and Foxy Brown.
Recent classics from 2005 will include Walk the Line, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon as Johnny and June Carter Cash, and A History of Violence showing on 35mm.
FrightFest will also return for its 19th year at GFF, with the legendary three-day horror binge showcasing 11 new feature films.
It will kick off with the UK premiere of You’ll Never Find Me, a claustrophobic two-hander set in an Australian RV Park.
Other specially curated programmes will include Wild Flower, Flaming Star: The Films of Dolores Del Rio, What Will The Men Wear?, which explores the star powers of three of Hollywood’s most subversive female stars of the 1930s, Love is sweet oh!, which examines on-screen representations of love in the lives of Black people and people of colour, and Gestures of Memory: After the Archive, a series of screenings which interrogate and re-imagine archival practice.
Tickets to the opening and closing galas will go on sale at 11am on Thursday, January 25.
Tickets to all events will go on sale to GFT Cinecard holders at 11am on Friday, January 26 and on general sale at 11am on Monday, January 29 at glasgowfilm.org/home and from the GFT box office.
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