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It will be a bittersweet moment for Glasgow Film Festival director Allison Gardner when the curtain rises at the event’s opening night on Wednesday with the world premiere of John Maclean’s Tornado starring Tim Roth and Jack Lowden. On the one hand, there will be the usual sense of pride that comes with launching another edition of what is now Scotland’s biggest film festival and the UK’s second biggest (after the BFI London Film Festival). But on the other hand, this year will mark the final time Gardner will kick off the event she co-founded before she retires in October.
Gardner is a beloved cultural leader in the Scottish film community, having worked at Glasgow Film, the charity that runs the festival and the city’s indie cinema Glasgow Film Theatre, for more than 30 years. Her audience-focused approach to programming both the cinema and, in turn the festival, have been pivotal in growing them both into the establishments they are today. She co-directed GFF since its launch in 2005 with Allan Hunter until he retired in 2023 and has been CEO of Glasgow Film since 2020.
“When I retire, I know the team will go from strength to strength because we’ve built great teams over the years,” says Gardner. “The ethos of cinema is in the DNA of the cinema and the festival. Glasgow Film secured its multi-year funding award from Creative Scotland [£3.6M across the next three years], the festival is doing very well in terms of ticket sales and the growth of the Industry Focus section, so I really do feel that I’m leaving it in a very good place.”
And many would agree. The 21st edition of the Glasgow Film Festival looks set to be one of its biggest events to date with an additional 12 world and European premieres, including the world premiere of Martyn Robertson’s documentary Make it to Munich, which will close the fest on March 9.
This year’s program also includes 66 UK premieres and 12 Scottish premieres from 38 countries. There will be In Conversation segments with Glasgow native James McAvoy and American actress Jessica Lange, the latter of whom will be in town with Ed Harris for the UK premiere of their film Long Day’s Journey into Night.
Its Industry Focus strand, which runs March 3-6, will offer up a range of talks including a keynote investigating the use of copyright in the age of AI, an onstage conversation with exec producer Sam Lavender and the inaugural Funny Features Live pitch, in which comedy projects will be pitched to execs from companies such as Protagonist, BBC Films, Baby Cow and Curzon.
“I consider ourselves a broad church of a festival,” says Gardner. “There’s something for everyone. We are always programming without prejudice because not everyone loves horror films or artist’s experimental works, but there are audiences for those films and I think, in that respect, we try to make sure there’s something for everyone.”
First steps
Glasgow Film Festival was started in 2005 after Gardner and her team read a line in a European journal that said: “Cities that have film festivals have an audience that goes to see a broader range of films all year round.”
“We thought this sounded great because we were already running the Glasgow Film Theatre so how difficult could it be to start a festival?,” says Gardner.
The idea, she says, was to focus on independent cinema for the local audience first and build the event slowly and organically. “We thought if we build it, they will come – and they actually did come,” she says.
The first edition of GFF, which operated out of the 2-screen Glasgow Film Theatre (which has since opened a third screen), brought in a crowd of 5,000 across the first year. By 2013, that number grew to more than 40,000 attendees. The aim was always to make the festival “small and friendly”, offering great cinema to locals.
At the time, the world-famous Edinburgh Film Festival was still thriving (it went into administration in 2022 before being rebuilt last year), and Gardner says there was never an intention to compete with that neighbouring event nor the London Film Festival, both of which focused more on star power and world or European premieres. What GFF lacked in glitz and glamour, it would make up for with eclectic programming that could serve its passionate local audience.
“I’m a great believer in not growing for growth’s sake,” she says. “I think you have to keep hold of the ethos and what makes people want to come back to it and I think what keeps audiences returning to the festival is that it has the same ethos as the cinema, in that it’s cinema for all. We try to remove barriers. There’s no such thing as a perfect organization, but we try. You have to be honest, you have to be alert, and you have to be a learning organization and try and learn from your failures and your mistakes.”
Audiences are so much at the forefront of the festival’s programming that even its only award – its Audience Award – is voted for by the audience and is only open to first or second-time filmmakers. This year, Brian Durnin’s feature Spilt Milk, Khazak thriller Crickets, It’s Your Turn and Chinese documentary Mistress Dispeller are among the contenders.
“We’ve always prided ourselves as a great festival to discover emerging talent,” says Gardner. “It was really important that we had an award that we could offer up to new talent.”
Organic growth
Across the last two decades, GFF has seen its star power steadily grow and has welcomed the likes of Richard Gere, Jesse Buckley, Karen Gillan, Alan Rickman, James Earl Jones, Simon Pegg, Ben Wheatley, Haifaa al-Mansour and Viggo Mortensen through its doors. Many guests end up returning to help in different capacities at the event. Wheatley, for example, is returning this year to help as a mentor.
“We do so much on the ground now in terms of mentorship schemes,” says Gardner. “We run the BFI Challenge Fund for Funny Features, a talent lab which takes place across six months. We are also running an animation program called Animatic. So, we’re really plugged into that talent and what we try and do is make sure that we’re engaging with them all year round so that they know that we’re a place they can approach.”
The festival has also made a concerted effort across the last two decades to engage a younger demographic, with Gardner saying 40% of GFF audiences are under the age of 30. “This is really unique in a film festival setting and we think it indicates that we’re genuinely moving forward.”
Indeed, the festival has been reputed locally for its engaging pop-up events which have in past years included: a screening of John Carpenter’s The Thing on an indoor ski slope; a screening of The Blair Witch Project in Mugdock Country Park, where audience members had to follow routes through the woods to get to the cinema; and a Con-Air screening where everyone wore orange jumpsuits and a bar was turned into an aircraft hangar.
Gardner points to these moments, plus the 2009 European premiere of Armando Iannucci’s In the Loop as being some of her fondest memories of the festival to date.
While she doesn’t officially step down from her role at Glasgow Film until October, she’s proud of the legacy she has helped to build and is confident that the festival will continue to grow.
“The organization’s overarching values have always been transparency, authenticity and sustainability,” she says. “We have always tried to filter our decision through those values where we can make sure we’re supporting, nurturing, helping and also showcasing and spotlighting talent.”
