What to Watch Out for at Glasgow Film Festival 2023

The programme for this year’s Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) has been announced. Taking place from 1st till 12th of March, GFF23 will host 250 screenings, including 6 World premieres and 70 UK premieres. 

The team behind the festival has put together yet another incredible programme with a huge range of films for everyone to get stuck into.

As always, the GFF will be spotlighting Scotland in any way it can. On the back of its world premiere at Sundance, Adura Onashile’s Glasgow-set film Girl will open the festival. We hope you managed to snap up tickets to the gala showing before they sold out. 

Two documentaries by Edinburgh-based director Mark Cousins will be showing. The March on Rome (10th and 11th March) explores the roots of European fascism through archival footage, and My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock (2nd and 4th March), a reflective piece on the director’s work starring impressionist Alister McGowan. Both look fascinating and the former is already working up a bit of a buzz. 

The festival will close with the UK premiere of Polite Society (12th March) from Channel 4’s We Are Lady Parts creator Nida Manzoor. If her show is anything to go off of, this coming-of-age, martial arts comedy is a must-see. Tickets are selling out fast so snap ’em up early!

Aftersun fans can see Academy Award nominee Paul Mescal (that’s fun to say isn’t it) in the UK premiere of God’s Creatures (2nd and 3rd March). This dark thriller is certainly a tonal shift in the parent-child relationship we’ve seen Mescal in but there’s no doubt he has the acting chops for such an intense role. 

GFF will be celebrating 10 years of Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin with a special screening at Queen Margaret Union (4th March). The film sees Scarlett Johansson dropped into real-life Glasgow in a disguise (literally just a brown wig) with hidden cameras capturing her interactions. If you haven’t seen it, now is your chance to experience it unlike anything else as it will be accompanied by a live performance of the BAFTA-nominated score from the BBC Symphony Orchestra. 

If you’re looking to catch up on some iconic classics, make sure you go to In The Driving Seat, a free morning retrospective of female-focused classics. Screenings will include Thelma & Louise (9th March), the late Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou (4th March), and Agnès Varda’s Vagabond (8th March) among others. 

Black physical and mental health will be spotlighted in a specially curated programme, A Song in Three Parts. Part One (10th March) is a series of four short films (Fifty Four Days, Grounding, Gramercy, Three Songs on Pain, and Time and Light) tied together through their exploration of Black men’s health and community.

FrightFest is also making its return with 11 titles on show for the thrill seekers out there. Catch Consecration (11th March), a deeply dark film about murder and hidden truths set in a convent in the Highlands. 

A must-watch for anyone harbouring a hatred for childhood cartoons is Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (10th March). Or, for a slightly lighter watch, the french sci-fi Smoking Causes Coughing (9th March) sees a Power Rangers-style anti-smoking team led by a rat on a mission to fight evil (and cigarettes).  

More information, including the full festival programme, can be found on their website.