Glasgow Film Festival 2021 will take place from 24th February to 7th March 2021 in partnership with 22 cinemas around the UK.
The festival’s 17th edition will link up with cinemas across the four nations so that audiences can enjoy the festival even if they can’t travel to Glasgow. In addition to those cinemas and Glasgow Film Theatre, the festival films will also screen online at Glasgow Film at Home.
This marks the first time audiences will be able to take part in Glasgow Film Festival in towns and cities nationwide. From An Lanntair in Stornoway, to Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, Queen’s Film Theatre in Belfast, and three cinemas across London – BFI Southbank, Barbican and Curzon Soho – GFF premieres will be screening in independent cinemas all around the UK.
Further partner cinemas will have exclusive screenings in: Aberdeen, Bo’Ness, Bristol, Dundee, Edinburgh, Ipswich, Inverness, Keswick, Leicester, Manchester, Northampton, Northumberland, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, and Stirling.
Each partner cinema will show the Opening and Closing films of the festival, as well as a selection of cinema-only screenings from the festival programme, to be announced in January.
The UK premiere of Altitude’s ‘Minari’ will open GFF on Wednesday 24th February. ‘Minari’ is an award-winning autobiographical drama from director and screenwriter Lee Isaac Chung, which won the US Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and US Dramatic Audience Award at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
Starring Steven Yeun, best known for playing Glen in ‘The Walking Dead’ ,and his chilling performance in ‘Burning’, ‘Minari’ follows a Korean-American family who move from the big city to a rural Arkansas farm in search of the American Dream. Jacob (Yeun) plans to grow Korean vegetables to sell to other immigrant families. His wife Monica (Yeri Han) is wary of his ambitions, and their two children, five-year-old son David (Alan Kim) and daughter Anne (Noel Kate Cho) are restless in the rural setting. The whole dynamic changes with the arrival of their sly, foul-mouthed grandmother from South Korea, Yuh-Jung Youn. Underneath the instability and challenges, ‘Minari’, named after a vegetable otherwise known as Korean Watercress or Chinese Celery, shows the undeniable resilience of a family and what really makes a home.
GFF will close on Sunday 7th March with Curzon’s ‘Spring Blossom’, the remarkably assured debut feature from writer, director and actress Suzanne Lindon. ‘Spring Blossom’ is an elegant tale of a bored Parisian student (Lindon), tired of her routine, who meets an older actor, Raphaël (Arnaud Valois), outside the theatre she passes each day. Curiosity gradually turns to infatuation in a tale of first love that unfolds in the streets and cafes of a sun-kissed Monmartre. Lindon expertly captures the feelings of a teenage girl on the cusp of adulthood, finding and losing herself, all set against a beautiful Parisian backdrop.
Allison Gardner, Glasgow Film CEO and Co-Director of Glasgow Film Festival, said:
“Working in partnership with cinemas all around the UK means we can bring fantastic films and premieres to audiences across the four nations and still give that big screen experience that makes cinema so exciting.
We are delighted to be opening the 17th Glasgow film Festival with Minari, a heart-warming, affecting portrait of a family set against the beautiful Arkansas countryside. Steven Yeun gives a powerful portrayal in Lee Isaac Chung’s autobiographical drama, with scene-stealing performances from Yuh-Jung Youn and Alan Kim as a grandmother and grandson at cultural odds.”
The full programme for GFF will be announced on 14th January. Tickets for the programme, including the Opening and Closing films, will go on sale on Monday 18th January. Find more information at www.glasgowfilm.org/festival
The full list of partner cinemas is:
Belmont Filmhouse, Aberdeen
Queen’s Film Theatre, Belfast
The Hippodrome, Bo’Ness
Watershed, Bristol
Chapter, Cardiff
Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee
Filmhouse, Edinburgh
Keswick Film Festival, Keswick
Eden Court, Inverness
Ipswich Film Theatre, Ipswich
Phoenix, Leicester
BFI Southbank, London
Barbican, London
Curzon Soho, London
Home, Manchester
Broadway, Nottingham
Northampton Filmhouse, Northampton
Forum Cinema Hexam, Northumberland
Curzon, Oxford
Showroom Workstation, Sheffield
MacRobert Arts Centre, Stirling
An Lanntair, Stornoway
