Glasgow Film Festival celebrates its 21st edition with over 33,000 attendances

Stellar lineup of Hollywood stars including Toni Collette, Jessica Lange, Ed Harris, James McAvoy and Tim Roth lit up the city alongside a programme of free films and events for the community.

Article Source: Glasgow Film Festival
Last Updated: 25 March 2025 13:48

Image Credit: Ingrid Mur

Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) wrapped the 21st edition of Scotland’s flagship film festival after an epic 12 days, featuring 114 feature films from 39 countries at Glasgow Film Theatre and nine other venues across the city, attracting over 33,000 attendances.

For the first time in its history, the festival opened and closed with Scottish world premieres - John Maclean’s Tornado and Make it to Munich from Martyn Robertson. The programme continued to spotlight Scottish talent with Glasgow-shot, Amazon studios drama Fear being given a big-screen premiere at GFT, and Edinburgh director Laura Carreira's debut feature On Falling screening at 10 partnering cinemas across the UK: Barbican London, BFI Southbank London, Cameo Edinburgh, Chapter Cardiff , DCA Dundee, MacRobert Art Centre Stirling, Queens Film Theatre Belfast, Showroom Sheffield, Tyneside Newcastle and Watershed Bristol.

The celebration of Scottish film on screen extended beyond the film programme into the GFF industry programme that returned for its 10th edition this year. GFF continues to be the major meeting point for the Scottish filmmaking sector, welcoming almost 750 delegates to the festival. The event - at brand new venue The Social Hub Glasgow - hosted the four-day conference that offered panels, 1-2-1 meetings and networking opportunities for delegates at all stages of their screen careers.

Within 10 years the festival’s industry programme has grown from a two-day local networking event in 2016, to a four-day national event today, attracting delegates from around the UK and beyond. Industry Focus 2025 supported 39 filmmaking talents with one of the three Festival year-round talent development initiatives, culminating in over 200 hours of support to help filmmakers develop their creative and business skills.

Glasgow Film’s ethos of Cinema for All is reflected in the Festival’s approach to talent development, creating impactful programmes curated from the ground up, by the sector and for the sector, in a show of full circle support by nurturing emerging talent.

GFF25 Industry Focus saw Kaljeven Lally (writer), Isabella Bassett (producer) and Jena Hunter’s (producer) Responsibility win the inaugural Funny Features Industry Audience Award. The feature follows Sanjeev who quickly becomes suspect-number-one in a bizarre murder case and the target of two opposing crime families, the police, and not to mention… his parents. Industry Focus’ newest talent lab gave participants access to one-to-one consultancy sessions, workshops and bespoke mentoring to support the development of their projects.

This year also brought the sophomore year of the Animatic Talent Development scheme to facilitate the development of Scottish creatives’ animated features, TV series and short film ideas. This saw three award winners and a special mention at The Animatic Live Pitch. The winner for Best TV/Feature Pitch was animated Scottish folk mystery Lochs & Legends by Abi Lamb and the award for Best Short Pitch went to To Myself and the Forest of Tigers by Sammi Duong. Overlords, an animated adult comedy series from Hannah Kelso was also presented with the inaugural Animatic Industry Audience Award. Finally, a special mention was awarded to The Three Graces by Wilma Smith.

The festival’s free programme of events this year included its daily free morning retrospective screenings, which welcomed hundreds of movie-goers each day to enjoy classics like Gregory’s Girl, Lady Bird and Boyz n the Hood on the big screen. GFF also worked with communities around the city to co-create a Community Takeover Day at Garnethill Multicultural Centre, which featured a free screening of Ukrainian sci-fi drama U Are The Universe, plus food and activities for all ages. This event was made possible with the help of the Glasgow 850 Festival Fund, as was the Festival’s Young Ambassador programme, a GFF initiative for 18-25 year old’s to learn more about the festival and stage their own pop-up cinema event.

Bringing cinematic gems and the talent behind them to Glasgow is what the festival does best, as was the case with the sell-out showing of the classic Australian film Muriel’s Wedding, where Toni Collette surprised the audience to join a GFF / ABBA lip sync - all while welcoming a multitude of famous faces onto the red-carpet including Jessica Lange, James McAvoy, Tim Roth, Ed Harris, George Mackay and Martin Compston. The festival also marked its final year under GFF director Allison Gardner, who retires from Glasgow Film in October.

Glasgow Film Festival will return for its 22nd edition in 2026 with the full programme revealed in January. Festival dates will be announced soon. A selection of films from GFF25 will screen at GFT throughout 2025 with On Falling, The End, and Just Another Girl on the IRT screening this month.

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