You all know I love A good film festival and Glasgow Film Festival has to be one of my favorites to cover. The Festival has an amazing mix of films, with a great mix of contemporary and obscure there is always something wonderful and new for the attendees to experience. And these are great films, with last year giving us DREAMS ON FIRE, Riders of Justice, and Catros Spies – three films that have easily entered my top 100 all-time favorites, there really is something for everyone. And this year looks like it will not be disappointing anyone.

For 2022 the festival will be back at the GFT and Cineworld in Glasgow, and festival highlights will be screened in a number of cinemas all over the UK as well as on the Glasgow Film At Home online platform. So even if you cannot make it to the festival you can still enjoy it from the comfort of your own home, perfect for those of us with compromised immune systems.

The 18th edition of the annual festival will open with the UK premiere of The Outfit, a gripping and masterful thriller starring Academy Award winner Mark Rylance, and close with the UK premiere of the Camera D’or-winning Murina, a tense family drama directed by Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic and executive-produced by Martin Scorsese. It will be running from 2 March to 13 March and tickets will be on sale from the 31st of January. 

Now if you are wondering what is worth seeing at the festival, well some of my top picks are:

Some Like it Rare / Barbaque

There is an old saying about never asking your butcher where they get their meat from, and it definitely springs to mind whenever I see the trailer for Some Like it Rare / Barbaque.

“Sophie and Vincent have run a family owned butcher shop for over 10 years. But with competition from meat factories, their small business is on the brink of bankruptcy and their marriage is falling apart. All seems lost when Vincent accidentally kills a vegan activist who vandalized their shop a few days earlier.

Vincent is overwhelmed and terrified of being accused of murder. The only solution he can come up with, is to get rid of the body by turning it into ham, which his wife will inadvertently sell.

Life takes an astonishing turn, when suddenly the shop is packed with customers and they cannot meet the demand for their “extraordinary ham “. Sophie seems to fall in love again with Vincent. How far will they go to save their business and their marriage? The idea of starting over, could be very a very tantalizing prospect!”

Love, Life and Goldfish / すくってごら

I am a huge fan of musicals and Japanese cinema and with Love, Life and Goldfish I have a film that brings both those passions together.

“When big city banker Makoto has an outburst at work, he is sent to work in a small village in the middle of nowhere as his punishment. Immediately, he falls in love with the woman who runs the local goldfish scooping store. However, the road to true love is not that easy and Makoto has to contend with rivals for his love, as well as his own admirer who has taken quite the shine to him. With shades of Sion Sono’s Love & Peace (GFF16), this quirky musical will leave you tapping your feet for days.”

Inu-Oh

My second Japanese pick from the festival. Inu-Oh is brought to us by Director Masaaki Yuasa, who has worked on Adventure Time, Space Dandy, and the brilliant Japan Sinks.

“A fictionalized depiction of the life of Inu-oh (“King Dog”), a 14th-century Japanese performer of music drama at the time of its transition from the folk art of sarugaku (“monkey music”) into the formalized traditions of Noh and kyôgen.”

Once Upon a Time in Uganda 

I am not too famailar with African Cinema, specifically Ugandan Cinema, but this film has caught my interest. 

” Once Upon a Time in Uganda is a captivating underdog story, where truth is wilder than fiction.

Isaac, a former brick maker in Uganda, decides to pick up a camera and start shooting his own ‘80s inspired action epics, and Alan, a film nerd from New York gives up his life in America to join forces with Isaac after seeing a trailer for one of his films online. Against all odds, the two unlikely friends have catapulted Wakaliwood to worldwide stardom with their own gonzo action movies bringing joy to millions of people across the internet.”

a-ha The Movie

When Take On Me starts playing you just know that I will singing along to every single word, so given the chance to see this film, you better believe I am going to take it.

“a-ha is Norway’s biggest pop success ever and their hit Take On Me is still one of the most played song of the last millennium. Everybody remembers the iconic video and the band is still selling out arenas around the world.

a-ha The Movie follows the band on tour, telling the full story of how three young men followed their impossible dream of becoming Norwegian pop stars. When Take On Me reached number 1 on Billboard in the US in 1985 the dream came true. Or did it?

This is a story of big ambitions, great music, broken friendship – and maybe forgiveness.”

Adult Adoption

As someone who struggles with connecting people due to my complex family, this one grabbed my interest.

“Rosy (Ellie Moon) is a 25-year-old bank teller who ‘aged out’ of the foster care system at 18 and has since managed to build a solid yet unspectacular life for herself. Desperate to fill that parental void, she seeks out an online service that connects older adults looking for adult surrogate children. In turn, this takes Rosy on a surreal journey to find that familial love she has long been searching for. Lead actor Ellie Moon wrote and stars in this quirky yet tender tale examining loneliness and the desire for a place to belong.”

Where is Anne Frank?

From Ari Folman the creator who brought us both Waltz with Bashir and The Congress comes this unusual and incredably important tale, one I think more of us need to see.

“The film follows the journey of Kitty, the imaginary friend to whom Anne Frank dedicated her diary. A fiery teenager, Kitty wakes up in the near future in Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam and embarks on a journey to find Anne, who she believes is still alive, in today’s Europe. While the young girl is shocked by the modern world, she also comes across Anne’s legacy.”

One Second / Yi Miao Zhong

The description of this film had me hooked.

“Zhang Yimou’s long-awaited One Second is a beguiling love letter to cinema. In the early 1970s, a nameless fugitive escapes from a Gansu Province labour camp. He is desperate to see a newsreel said to promise a glimpse of his estranged daughter. It is the start of an epic trek through the desert that becomes a battle of wits with Orphan Liu (Liu Haocun) who has her own reasons for trying to obtain the film. A wonderful blend of slapstick comedy and heartfelt drama that becomes a testimony to the power of moving images and the way cinema captures precious moments in time.”

Monstrous

Christina Ricci has a new film, count me i, also this is a World Premier so I NEED TO SEE THIS !!!

“From FrightFest favourite Chris Sivertson, director of The Lost, I Know Who Killed Me and co-director of All Cheerleaders Die, comes this unique supernatural chiller. Christina Ricci (The Matrix Resurrections, Sleepy Hollow) gives an powerful and emotional performance as Laura. Traumatised by an abusive relationship, she finally flees from her ex-husband with her seven-year-old son, Cody (Santino Barnard). But in their new, idyllic and remote sanctuary, they find that they have a bigger and more terrifying monster to deal with… one that will test their physical and mental limits the max.”

So those are my nine top picks for the Glasgow Film Festival.

If you are looking to attend the festival you can start by going to their homepage here.

And I hope you all enjoy.