We’re off the see the wizard: Glasgow Film Festival to screen classic fantasy movie next year
IT is one of the most popular films in Hollywood history and its enduring appeal lasts to this day, decades after it was first released and made Judy Garland a star.
Now Glasgow Film Festival has announced some of the special events for its 20th edition early next year, which includes a screening of classic The Wizard Of Oz.
The fantasy film was made in 1939 and was one of the first to be screened in Technicolour, although the first part is in the traditional black and white.
It won two Oscars and catapulted Garland to stardom following her portrayal of Dorothy, who is transported to the fantasy world of Oz along with her dog Toto.
While there, they meet the Tin Man, Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion and followed the yellow brick road to meet the wizard and have their wishes granted.
Scotland’s biggest film festival returns to the Glasgow Film Theatre and other venues across the city from February 28 to March 10, 2024.
The festival will mark both the 20th edition of the festival and the 85th year since the opening of the GFT, which was named the Cosmo cinema when its doors opened in 1939.
To celebrate, Victor Fleming’s The Wizard Of Oz, the highest-grossing film of that year, will be shown at the venue.
Next year will also mark 50 years since the Cosmo was transformed into the GFT after the building was bought by the Scottish Film Council.
John Waters’s Female Trouble is also celebrating five decades and will be given a special screening.
The Glasgow Film Festival also operates free morning showings, which will return in 2024 with retrospectives from some of the key years in the history of Glasgow cinema.
From 1939, there will be screenings of Mr Smith Goes To Washington, Ninotchka, Only Angels Have Wings, and Wuthering Heights.
Further celebrating the establishment of the GFT in 1974, there will be free screenings of The Godfather Part II, Young Frankenstein, and Foxy Brown.
The inaugural edition of the festival was held in 2005 and from that year there will be screenings of Brick, Walk The Line, and Wolf Creek.
The festival also shines a light on global cinema every year, and the country in focus for its 20th edition is the Czech Republic.
Dubbed “Czech, please!”, it will include the radical feminist film Daisies by Věra Chytilová, which was once banned for its stance on communism and patriarchy.
Is There Any Place For Me, Please?, a debut feature documentary and UK premiere from Jarmila Štuková, showcases an intimate portrayal of one woman navigating life after an acid attack.
Other premieres include dystopian sci-fi Restore Point and chilling crime thriller Mr and Mrs Stodola.
The latter, directed by Petr Hátle, tells the true story of a married couple, a Czech and a Slovak, who murdered eight elderly people between 2001 and 2002. Initially intended to be a documentary, it is instead a drama about the line between the normal and the abnormal, and how a minor offence can snowball and take on monstrous dimensions.
Restore Point is set in Prague in 2024 and tells of a future where citizens are guaranteed one “whole life” by the Czech constitution, with a mysterious company bringing anyone back from the dead if they die an unnatural death, provided they’ve backed up their data in the past 48 hours.
Period drama We Have Never Been Modern will inspect gender politics, martial constraints and self-identity. Brothers, the Czech Republic’s submission to the 2024 Academy Awards for the Best International Film, examines resilience in a story about an anti-communist resistance group.
Allison Gardner, the chief executive of Glasgow Film and director of GFF, said: “I am overjoyed to select titles for the 20th edition of the festival alongside a group of programmers with such vibrant and innovative ideas.
“Each programmer has been able to make their unique stamp on the upcoming festival through our popular special events, famous retrospectives and rich Czech titles.”
The shortlist for the GFF24 Audience Award will be announced with the full programme on January 24, with tickets going on sale on January 29.
Each programmer has been able to make their unique stamp on the upcoming festival