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Glasgow Film Festival’s top picks
SINCE it began in 2005, the Glasgow Film Festival has grown to become one of the cultural highlights of the city’s winter calendar. This year there are some 337 films screening over 12 days from next Wednesday.
But how do you pick your way through such a cornucopia of cinematic delights? Well, the obvious advice is don’t bother. Just take a chance. The whole point of a film festival is to be surprised. That said, here are 10 films in the programme that we think might be worthy of your attention.
1 UNDER THE SILVER LAKE
Director David Robert Mitchell’s follow-up to his brilliant slow-burn horror movie It Follows received a mixed reception when it screened at Cannes last year, but on paper it looks like an intriguing mash-up of Raymond Chandler, Thomas Pynchon and David Lynch. Andrew Garfield plays Sam, an LA slacker intrigued by his neighbour Sarah (Riley Keough). But when Sarah disappears without warning, Sam is convinced there is a mystery to be solved if he can only work his way through all the signs and symbols he keeps stumbling across. Modern film noir which reminds us that even the Californian sun casts shadows.
Under the Silver Lake screens at the GFT on Monday, February 25, at 8pm and Thursday, February 28, at 1.15pm
2 VOX LUX
There’s a lot of rock and roll in this year’s film festival, courtesy of the Sound and Vision strand. Lance Bangs’ Daydream Nation captures alt-rock royalty Sonic Youth in concert in Glasgow in 2007, while a kohl-eyed Elisabeth Moss, of all people, offers her own take on grungy diva-ness in Alex Ross Perry’s latest film, Her Smell. But the main event will probably be Vox Lux, Brady Corbet’s take on pop stardom with Natalie Portman as former teen pop star Celeste. Scott Walker provides the score, Sia provides the tunes and Portman give us a lead performance that riffs on Lady Gaga and Madonna. She also gets to wear a mean quiff.
Vox Lux is on at Cineworld on Saturday, March 2, at 8.30pm and Sunday, March 3, at 3.30pm
3 TELL IT TO THE BEES
Annabel Jankel’s adaptation of Fiona Shaw’s novel recreates 1950s small-town, small-minded Scotland scandalised by a growing friendship between mill worker Lydia (played by Holliday Granger) and local doctor Jean (Anna Paquin). The question it asks is: can love find a way when society doesn’t accept it?
Tell it to the Bees is screening at the GFT next Friday at 8.30pm and Saturday, February 23, at 12.45pm
4 KIA AND COSMOS
Sudipto Roy’s debut feature
(shot on the first mirrorless camera able to shoot in 4K, tech fans) is inspired by Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night. The story of an autistic teenage girl detective investigating the disappearance of her father, in truth as a drama it’s rather brittle. But as a vision of India it’s compelling. And the colours are just gorgeous. Interior decorators looking for inspiration start here.
Kia and Cosmos is on at the CCA next Thursday and at the GFT on Thursday, February 28, at 3.45pm
5 FREEDOM FIELDS
The documentary strand is always a strong one at the GFF and Freedom Fields is one of this year’s standouts. Filmed over five years, it’s a compelling account of the travails of women footballers in Libya in the wake of the Arab Spring. Director Naziha Arebi follows the story of three young women who want to play football in the face of religious conservatism and oppression.
Freedom Fields is showing at the CCA on Wednesday, February 27, at 6pm and Thursday, February 28, at 1.15pm
6 ONLY YOU
Harry Wootliff’s sweet-and-sour love story follows Elena, 35, and Jake, 26, during a Glaswegian Hogmanay. Played by Laia Costa and Josh O’Connor (last seen in God’s Own Country), they make a convincingly smitten couple. But as the relationship grows, real life – in the shape of IVF – starts to stick its oar in.
Wootliff’s intimate drama is a movie of autumnal light and raw emotions played out on the faces of Costa and O’Connor. Bonus marks for a spare soundtrack that makes the most of Elvis Costello and Bronski Beat.
Only You is at the GFT next Friday at 5.30pm
7 LORO
Paolo Sorrentino’s ongoing
interrogation of contemporary Italy continues with this latest film, a take on the political career of Silvio “bunga bunga” Berlusconi, played, inevitably, by Toni Servillo, the director’s go-to guy for a baroque performance.
But then baroque is normal with Sorrentino. Il Divo, his film about the politician Giulio Andreotti (in case you were imagining it was about the classical crossover vocal group), and The Great Beauty were both not afraid of going over the top.
Sorrentino’s trademark is bravura maximalism with the dial turned up to 11 and all the indications are that Loro clings to the same pattern, though hopefully without the glassy self-regard that has marred his more recent projects.
Loro is on at the GFT on Friday at 2.45pm and Saturday, February 23, at 2.45pm.
8 GALVESTON
Here’s curious. Take a gritty crime story from the guy who gave us True Detective (Nic
Pizzolatto), add a character actor (Ben Foster) who knocked it out of the park in 2016’s Hell or High Water and last year’s Leave No Trace and an up-and-coming star (Elle Fanning) who has already shown a taste for adventurous projects (Nicolas Winding Refn’s Neon Demon and Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled spring to mind).
What else do you need? A director? Who fits the bill? Well, how about Melanie Laurent? Really? The French actress, best known for playing Shoshanna in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds and last seen opposite Jean
Dujardin in the French comedy crowd-pleaser Return of the
Hero? It’s not the most obvious directorial casting, but that only makes it all the more intriguing.
Galveston is on at Cineworld on Friday, March 1, at 8.45pm and Saturday, March 2, at 3.15pm
9 WOMAN AT WAR
To Iceland for Benedikt Erlingsson’s playful eco-drama, which follows the efforts of Halla (Halldora Geirharosdottir) to wage war on the heavy industry that is ruining Iceland’s austere landscape. Oh, and she’s also trying to adopt a girl from Ukraine. Expect playful quirk with a parping soundtrack.
Woman at War is on at the GFT next Saturday at 6.05pm and Tuesday, February 26, at 3.30pm
10 A FAITHFUL MAN
Louis Garrel’s second film sounds like a love letter to love and French New Wave cinema. Garrel himself plays Abel, who is shocked when his partner Marianne (played by Laetitia Castra) tells him she is pregnant and leaving him for the father of her child. Years pass, relationships shift and bend. Throw in infatuation, rejection and Lily-Rose Depp and you have the perfect romance for film lovers.
A Faithful Man is at the GFT next Thursday at 9pm and Friday at 1.15pm.