Glasgow's pick and mix pleasures

Published on Friday 8 February 2008 19:15

IF FILM FESTIVALS ARE ALL about celebrating cinema, broadening horizons and giving audiences a first taster of the films of tomorrow, then last year's Glasgow Film Festival delivered in a big way.

The Lives of Others, Half Nelson, This is England, Tell No One, Rescue Dawn, Inland Empire and Away from Her (for which Julie Christie is currently up for an Oscar), all made their British or Scottish debut and helped transform Glasgow into the fastest-growing and third-biggest film festival (after Edinburgh and London) in Britain. That's impressive for such a new event and this year's programme – the second for artistic directors Allan Hunter and Allison Gardner – has every chance of building on that success.

Kicking off on (relatively) safe ground with Woody Allen's latest, the Ewan McGregor-starring Cassandra's Dream, the festival showcases edgier fare elsewhere with closing night gala Lars and the Real Girl, Brian De Palma's experimental Iraqi war drama Redacted, Harmony Korine's weird and wonderful Scottish-set Mister Lonely and Michael Haneke's shot-for-shot American remake of his 1997 film Funny Games. John Sayles is the festival's not-to-be-missed special guest; he'll be on hand to introduce his new film Honeydripper and discuss his fascinating career in an on-stage interview.

Horror showcase Frightfest takes up its annual residency with ace Spanish horror flick Rec and the first British public screening of Grindhouse in its non-butchered form. George Romero's Diary of the Dead will also get its premiere and there are some fascinating looking documentaries about Robert Mapplethorpe (Black White + Gray) and acclaimed photojournalist Eddie Adams (An Unlikely Weapon).

Add to that a proper shorts programme, a Bette Davis retrospective (including The Letter, introduced by Barry Norman), the Surprise Movie and, for kids, the excellent new fantasy film The Spiderwick Chronicles and there's plenty to satisfy any film fan.

&#149 The festival runs 14-24 February, www.glasgowfilm festival.org.uk