Glasgow Film Festival 2021: Slightly slimmed-down and impressive

The 2020 edition of Glasgow Film Festival snuck in just under the lockdown wire last February with a series of public screenings across the city, including the now-notorious Promising Young Woman, starring Carey Mulligan, as its knockout surprise film.

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The 2021 festival has gone fully online, which means that its slightly slimmed-down but still impressive programme is available for everyone to access: tickets cost around £10 and you have a four-day window to watch your chosen film.

Highlights include the world premiere of Alan McGee biopic Creation Stories with Ewen Bremner embodying the man who signed Oasis, the beautifully observed and already award-winning Scottish island refugee comedy Limbo and twist-filled drama Black Bear, starring Aubrey Plaza as a creatively struggling film-maker.

Here's a little message from our CEO, Allison Gardner, to welcome you all to Day 1 of #GFF21 🎉

Have a wonderful festival everyone.

Book your tickets for Opening Night screenings here: https://t.co/vYUCaIZuyJ pic.twitter.com/0Y9yRrYwW0

— Glasgow Film Festival (@glasgowfilmfest) February 24, 2021

There is also a strand celebrating the best of new South Korean cinema, including its current Oscar hopeful The Man Standing Next – a tense political thriller – plus a typically bloodthirsty FrightFest weekend crammed with enjoyably disreputable genre movies, including Run Hide Fight (which comes pitched as “Die Hard in a school”).

Logging on for a private screening might not be quite the same as packing into the grand old auditorium of the Glasgow Film Theatre’s Cinema One, but it seems like a decent substitute and with any luck things will be back to normal for GFF 2022.

Glasgow Film Festival is running from February 24 to March 7