Glasgow Film Festival celebrates record attendance

In addition to the 43,147 attending screenings and events across the city (up from 42,224 at GFF 2019), over 3000 people attended the first ever UK exhibition of work by legendary Hollywood photographer Susan Wood, which ran throughout the festival at The Lighthouse.

The 16th annual celebration of cinema finished in style on Sunday night with the UK premiere of How To Build A Girl, the big screen adaptation of Caitlin Moran’s blockbusting memoir directed by Coky Giedroyc.

Caitlin and Coky attended the premiere, joining the likes of Simon Pegg, George Mackay, Earl Cave, Simon Bird, Monica Dolan, Emily Beecham, Imogen Poots, Celia Imrie, Bill Paterson, Alice Winocour and the cast of new Scottish smash-hit Our Ladies who all walked the Glasgow Film Festival red carpet over the past 12 days. International guests included Marjane Satrapi and Ingvar Sigurosson.

GFF closed on International Women’s Day (IWD) with a programme dedicated to female talent both behind and in front of the camera. A number of filmmakers came to celebrate IWD at the festival with their films including Sarah Gavron with Rocks; Saudi Arabia’s first female film director Haifaa Al-Mansour with her new film The Perfect Candidate; and the new feature from 2017 Glasgow Film Festival Audience Award winner Alankrita Shrivastava: Dolly Kitty and Those Twinkling Stars.

The winner of the GFF 2020 Audience Award, sponsored by Caledonian MacBrayne, was announced tonight as Arracht - Tom Sullivan’s immensely impressive Irish Gaelic thriller evoking the desperate times of the 1840s Potato Famine. The Audience Award is the only prize handed out by GFF and is voted for by the film festival audiences.

Tom said: “This was completely unexpected and I am honoured. I would like to, from the bottom of my heart, thank everyone at Glasgow Film Festival for believing in our film and all the people who came and voted. Arracht is a film set during the Great Hunger in Ireland. To win the audience award here, in Glasgow, a city that was so influenced by the fallout of that dark period in our history is truly humbling.

“This award belongs to my brilliant cast and crew, the dedicated production team at Macalla and to TG4, ScreenIreland and the BAI. This means so much to all of us. Thank you Glasgow!”

Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) is one of the leading film festivals in the UK and run by Glasgow Film, a charity which also runs Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT). GFF is made possible by support from Screen Scotland, the BFI (awarding funds from the National Lottery), Glasgow Life and EventScotland, part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate. Glasgow Film Festival will return from 24 February to 7 March 2021.

Allison Gardner, Glasgow Film Festival Co-Director, said: “Glasgow Film Festival 2020 has been another brilliant year. Our free strand, ‘Are We There Yet? A Retrospective of the Future’, has been well attended with queues round the block. As always a highlight for me were the Special Events, and doing the Zombie Run at our Train to Busan screening with my colleagues was a particular highlight! One of my personal favourite films of the festival Heroic Losers charmed our audiences and will be part of ‘GFF On Tour’ – our touring festival – this April and May.”

Councillor David McDonald, chair of Glasgow Life and Depute Leader of Glasgow City Council, said: “You really can’t miss the effect the Glasgow Film Festival has on the city. There is an extra buzz, a heightened vibrancy and a sense something special is happening. The Glasgow Film Festival, like so many events held here, does amazing work bringing incredible talent to Scotland while creating a unique occasion recognised across the world. This has been another unforgettable celebration of film delivered by a festival which gets better and better every year.”