Hail, Caesar! to open Glasgow Film Festival

Coen brothers film screening will be UK première.

by Jennie Kermode

Anomalisa - 'A film that beautifully captures the clumsiness of human interactions'
Anomalisa - 'A film that beautifully captures the clumsiness of human interactions' Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival

This year's Glasgow Film Festival will open with the Coen brothers' Hail, Caesar!, it was announced today. The film, which will première one day earlier at the Berlinale, stars George Clooney, Josh Brolin and Scarlett Johansson.

The UK première of multiple award nominee Anomalisa will close the festival. Charlie Kaufman's animated tale of a bored man who has an extraordinary experience features the vocal talents of David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan. It won the Grand Special Jury Prize at last year's Venice Film Festival.

"‘We like to open the festival with something special to build audience excitement for the fortnight of films to come, and Hail, Caesar! is as big and beautiful a film as you can get. We are absolutely delighted to be screening the Coens’ wonderful, all-star salute to Old Hollywood," said festival co-director Allison Gardner, while her co-director Allan Hunter described Anomalisa as "a one of kind experience that finds incredible depths of human emotion in the plight of its stop-motion animated characters."

The festival will run from 17 to 28 February. The full programme will be announced on the evening of 20 January.

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