Glasgow Short Film Festival announces full programme

The selection for the upcoming Glasgow Short Film Festival has been announced.2015 will mark the first time that the festival has stepped away from running parallel to its parent festival (the Glasgow Film Festival) and will run proudly on its own from 11-15 March 2015.

In the festival’s diverse International Competition – in which films can vie for the Bill Douglas Award for Best International Short with a prize of 1200 GBP – a number of festival favourites make their appearance. It includes Symphony No 42 (Dir.Reka Bucsi , Hungary, 2014), Art (Dir. Adrian Sitaru, Romania, 2014) and the BAFTA nominated Monkey Love Experiments (Dirs. Ainslie Henderson & Will Anderson, UK, 2014). The competition’s mix of animation, fiction and experimental film will also feature such films A Single Body (Un Seul Corps) (Dir. Sotiris Dounoukos, France, 2014), a powerful, rich and complex story of the relationship between two immigrant friends that won Best International Short at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival and the popular Norwegian dark comedy Subtotal (Dir. Gunhild Enger, Norway, 2014)

In the festival’s Scottish Competition, with a prize of 1500 GBP, highlights include Myszochujek (Penismouse) (Dir. Kristof Babaski, UK, 1957) a seemingly lost Polish classic of animation that has been lost to history and restored. A playful take on censorship, the film seemingly has much in common with popular festival hit The Making of Longbird (Dirs. Ainslie Henderson & Will Anderson, UK, 2012). Also screening is Happy Birthday To Me (Dir. Peter Mackie Burns, UK, 2014), the latest short from Peter Mackie Burns who won the Berlin Golden Bear in 2005 for his Brenda Fricker starring short film Milk.

Aside from the competitions, the GSFF will also focus on Ukraine in a programme of shorts from the region that focuses on work not only arising out of the current political situation but also some of the best new fiction work coming out of the country. UK Director Duane Hopkins – known in the short film world for stunning shorts such as Field (Dir. Duane Hopkins, UK, 2001) – will be on hand to talk about his work and his move into features which recently includied the Venice-premiered Bypass (Dir. Duane Hopkins, UK, 2014) while another Masterclass focuses on the art of programming a film festival. The legendary A Wall Is A Screen will also be on hand to take people through the streets of Glasgow and enjoy some short films in most unusual locations.

The full programme can be found at: www.glasgowfilm.org/gsff. And you can see the festival trailer below:

29 January 2015, by Laurence Boyce