Glasgow Film Festival director Allison Gardner on its landmark anniversary year and a shake-up for a new era

A shake-up has been revealed for the Glasgow Film Festival’s 20th edition

A landmark year lies ahead for Glasgow Film Festival (GFF), whichever way Allison Gardner looks at it.

Reaching the event’s 20th edition should be enough of a cause for anticipation and celebration for its director. But 2024 also happens to be not only the 50th birthday of the festival’s much-loved home, the Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT), but the 85th anniversary of its doors opening as the Cosmo Cinema.

Also added to the mix is the fact the GFF is very much embarking on a new era – with a higher profile than ever before.

Glasgow Film Festival director Allison Gardner. Picture: Eoin Carey

Next year’s festival will be the first to be staged since Ms Gardner’s co-director Allan Hunter decided to step down after the pair worked on 15 programmes together. Rather than recruit a direct replacement, Ms Gardner, who runs both the festival and the GFT, has instead assembled a team of programmers to help shape the line-up of the event next year and beyond.

The shake-up coincides with the spotlight falling firmly onto GFF as Scotland’s biggest celebration of cinema, with the Edinburgh International Film Festival effectively starting from scratch next August, after the sudden collapse of its operator last autumn.

The heritage of the GFF and its spiritual home will be reflected in series of special events and screenings showcasing some of the best-known releases in 1939, 1974 and 2005, including The Wizard of Oz, Mr Smith Goes to Washington and Wuthering Heights to The Godfather Part II, Female Touble, Young Frankenstein, Walk the Line and Everyone We Know.

However, Ms Gardiner, who has also announced a series of Czechian films, is focused firmly on the future, thanks to the fresh perspectives she says will be brought to the event from her five-strong programme team – Christopher Kumar, Tomiwa Folorunso, Natasha Thembiso Ruwona, Heather Bradshaw and Rosie Beattie, most of whom have been involved at the event before in some capacity.

The 1939 classic Wuthering Heights will be screened at the Glasgow Film Festival in 2024.

Ms Gardner said: "The festival has never just been about Allan and I. We’ve always had other people working on the programming. We’re really trying to foreground them now.

“I really want to support emerging talent and ensure the festival is as diverse as possible. I’m not going to be at the festival forever. I’ve been doing this for 17 years now. It’s important to put building blocks in place for the future.

“It’s really important to us that we have people working on the programme from diverse backgrounds. We're looking for different perspectives. I’m 61, I’m from a working-class background and my father worked in the shipyards. I have a particular outlook.

“We’re working together to find films that audiences will love. It's not rocket science. We’re asking ‘is this film good and will audiences like it?’ That’s the driving force."

The Glasgow Film Festival is run from the historic Glasgow Film Theatre. Picture: David Anderson

The GFF was steadily building audience numbers in the run-up to the pandemic, reaching a record peak of more than 43,000 in 2020, weeks before the pandemic lockdown shut down the global film industry.

Although more than 33,000 admissions were recorded this year, Ms Gardner insists the festival will be taking a cautious approach to growth in future, with efforts to raise its international profile likely to be focus on its industry programme.

Citing the impact of prolonged standstill funding, Ms Gardner said she expected next year’s programme to be around a third smaller than in 2020, with planning for the 2024 event also hampered by the knock-on impact of the Hollywood actors and writers strikes.

She said: “The problem wasn’t so much that we were going for a lot of Hollywood stuff. It was just that release dates were moving all over the place. Distributors weren’t locking anything down as they weren’t sure if actors would be supporting new releases. It was obviously something we had no control over.

Peter Mullan, Conor McCarron and James Price at the Glasgow Film Festival premiere of Dog Days in 2023. Picture: Amy Muir

“We’ve been pretty much working on next year’s festival since September. We’re probably going for around 120 features, so it’s going to be a big festival. Pre-Covid, we had about 180 features, so we’ve slimmed the festival down a bit, but you have to remember that we’ve been on the same level of funding since 2015.

“I think our industry programme is where our growth is going to come, if I’m being honest. It's really taken off for us. We are Scotland’s moment for the film industry now.

"I think we will grow our audience numbers, but we have to be careful about that. I’m not keen on just numbers. I’m really keen on the quality of experiences audiences have. That’s what will get people coming back again. I think we will continue to grow in terms of the diversity of the films we show.”

Ms Gardner admitted she had been dismayed at recent government cuts imposed on the cultural sector, including the targeting of Creative Scotland and Screen Scotland.

She said: “It was such poor messaging. I just thought ‘has no-one thought it through?’ It felt really clumsy.

“I know [chief executive] Iain Munro and the people at Creative Scotland and Screen Scotland are working really hard. I firmly believe that they genuinely care about the sector. I think that was a big blow to them.

A special 85th anniversary screening of '​The Wizard of Oz' will be staged at Glasgow Film Festival in 2024. Picture: Hulton Archive

“I understand that there’s not a lot of money. My husband works in social care. I know how difficult it is. But culture is core to our humanity. You have to invest properly in it.

“Our key message to the Government is ‘invest in success’. We are a successful, well-run organisation. We’ve managed the festival within a balanced budget, which is really important for us. We require investment to make sure we grow in a sustainable, thoughtful and caring fashion.”

When the GFF launched in 2005, there was some scepticism that it could co-exist with the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), which was launched in 1947.

Efforts to revive the EIFF from last year's catastrophic collapse are being led by leading Scottish film producer Andrew Macdonald, chair of a brand new company being set up to run the event. Paul Ridd, recently unveiled as EIFF director, has pledged to lead the event to a “bright new future” by focusing on “world-class” films and filmmakers.

Ms Gardner said: “We are Scotland’s largest film festival now, but we are keen to work with the EIFF. I’m very open to ideas. Collaboration is always better than competition – I’ve been saying that for years. It’s really important that we start working together.”