GFF shines spotlight on Ireland and Baltics

Regional focal points tonight along with retrospective

by Amber Wilkinson

Al Pacino as Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon
Al Pacino as Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon
The Glasgow Film Festival has announced today that they will showcase new cinema from Ireland and the Baltics in their 14th edition.

The festival, which runs from February 21 to March 4, will also see the return of its free retrospective strand, this year celebrating Rebel Heroes.

Ireland: The Near Shore promises a strong focus on emerging female directors. It will include the Scottish premiere of Nora Twomey’s animation The Breadwinner, about a headstrong young girl living in Afghanistan under the Taliban, and the UK premiere of music video director Aoife McArdle’s debut film Kissing Candice. The section will also feature Frank Berry’s award-winning look at teenage life behind bars Michael Inside and Elliot Page in the Scottish premiere of David Freyne’s new twist on the zombie movie The Cured.

The Pure Baltic strand will host the UK premieres of Jaak Kilmi's The Dissidents, an upbeat comedy about three teenage Estonian boys who escape to Sweden in the 1980s; Sergei Loznitsa’s A Gentle Creature, and Aik Karapetian’s Latvian psychological thriller Firstborn. The free retrospective matinees will focus on brooding heroes, from a doomed James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause to Sidney Poitier breaking free from the chain gang in The Defiant Ones, via Steve McQueen tearing up the streets of San Francisco in Bullitt and Elvis Presley shaking up his cell block in Jailhouse Rock.

Festival co-director Allan Hunter said: “After the roaring success of the Dangerous Dames focus at GFF 2017, we salute cinema’s finest Rebel Heroes in 2018. A celebration of mavericks, misfits and ice-cool dudes, the 2018 retrospective ranges widely from Henry Fonda’s people’s champion in The Grapes Of Wrath to Al Pacino's bank robber in Dog Day Afternoon. We have films starring Steve McQueen, Sidney Poitier, Elvis Presley, Al Pacino and many more. Once again, they are all showing free of charge, allowing everyone access to Glasgow Film Festival 2018.”

Co-director Allison Gardner added: “We’re thrilled that GFF will be bringing the hottest filmmaking talent from our neighbours in Ireland to audiences in Glasgow. It’s particularly rewarding to be able to showcase work from new female directors with fresh takes on the universal story of growing up and making your mark on the world”.

The full programme for Glasgow Film Festival 2018 will be announced on January 24.

The full list of titles announced today:

Pure Baltic

  • Firstborn, Aik Karapetian (2017)
  • A Gentle Creature, Sergei Loznitsa (2017)
  • The Dissidents, Jaak Kilmi (2017)

Ireland: The Near Shore

  • The Breadwinner, Nora Twomey (2017)
  • The Cured, David Freyne (2017)
  • Kissing Candice, Aoife McArdle (2017)
  • Michael Inside, Frank Berry (2017)

Rebel Heroes

  • Angels With Dirty Faces, Michael Curtiz (1938)
  • Breathless, Jean-Luc Godard (1960)
  • Bullitt, Peter Yates (1968)
  • Cool Hand Luke, Stuart Rosenberg (1967)
  • The Defiant Ones, Stanley Kramer (1958)
  • Dog Day Afternoon, Sidney Lumet (1975)
  • The Grapes Of Wrath, John Ford (1940)
  • Jailhouse Rock, Richard Thorpe (1957)
  • On The Waterfront, Elia Kazan (1954)
  • Rebel Without A Cause, Nicholas Ray (1955)

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