Twenty one docs are selected for the Glasgow Film Festival (March 2-13), five of which have a particularly Caledonian flavour. “What we try and do is programme without prejudice,” GFF co-director Allison Gardner tells Business Doc Europe. “It doesn’t have to be a world premiere, it doesn’t have to be a UK premiere. We try and look for great films that we know audiences will engage with and that applies across the whole program as well as the documentary strand.”
That said, a number of the docs on offer are world-prems; Pictures from Iraq, in which Scottish director Robbie Fraser reunites with journalist, photographer and war correspondent David Pratt (and following on from Pictures from Afghanistan, 2020), and Nigel Askew’s Wake Up Punk which features Joe Corre, son of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, who in 2016 burnt millions of pounds worth of punk-era memorabilia in protest at the movement’s commodification. Another doc, Doug Aubrey’s Legacy of an Invisible Bullet, filmed between Scotland and Denmark and described as a self-portrait of a filmmaker stripped bare, is presented as an ‘exclusive preview.’
GFF co-director Gardner reserves special comment for Scottish Lizzie MacKenzie’s The Hermit of Treig, also a world premiere, about a man who has spent the past four decades living in a log cabin nestled near Loch Treig (‘the lonely loch’) with neither electricity nor running water. “It is just one of those brilliant stories of the classic outsider. I mean, Loch Treig is really quite hard to get to, this man lives there without electricity and he lives off the land. This is a real spotlight on somebody who’s really chosen to be off grid.”
Other docs include Scottish director Jono McLeod’s “jaw-dropping” My Old School, featuring celebrated actor Alan Cumming, about schoolkid Brandon Lee who wasn’t quite as young as the 16-year-olds with whom he shared the classroom, and the much-lauded a-Ha The Movie which lifts the lid on the top-selling Norwegian pop group.
Gardner describes Robert Coe and Warwick Ross’ Blind Ambition as “Cool Runnings meets Sideways,” in which the first team of Zimbabwean sommeliers competes at the World Blind Wine Tasting Championships in France. “We try and look for great films that we know audiences will engage with,” she comments. “Blind Ambition is just so feel good…showcasing those African stories is really important, so we make sure that we’re giving that diversity but through entertainment. It has to be entertaining because we’re asking people to part with money.”
In the same vein she references Cathryne Czubek’s Once Upon a Time in Uganda, which the festival describes as ‘a true ode to the art of earnest filmmaking that’s guaranteed to have you cheering in the aisles.’ “It is really important as it gives you that warm feeling that cinema really is for all. That’s our motto at Glasgow Film. Cinema is for everybody. It’s a community. It’s a communal shared experience. And when you do share it, even in the making, which is what they do in terms of their village , then there’s a real energy to that. And it’s funny, it’s fun,” Gardner underlines.
Then there is Martyn Robertson’s surf doc Ride The Wave (another Scottish film) which receives its Scottish premiere during the fest, after world-premiering at London FF 2021. “That didn’t prejudice us against bringing it for our audiences,” says Gardner, re-stating her programme mantra. “I think you’ve got to be open-minded and say, ‘this is a Scottish story. It doesn’t matter that it’s had its world premiere in London…I always think from the audience perspective.”
The GFF co-director believes that “in terms of documentaries, Scotland punches above its weight,” and points to the “brilliant” Scottish Documentary Institute that is “absolutely fabulous in terms of developing people’s careers and the all-year round work that they do.”
She also references the Short Circuit talent initiative at Glasgow Film which targets doc-makers and fiction-makers alike, and the distribution work of Glasgow-based Cosmic Cat who is handling GFF 2022 titles Not Going Quietly (Nicholas Bruckman, US), The Hermit of Trieg and Ride The Wave. The company is also handling Glasgow 2021 titles Eye of the Storm (Anthony Baxter) and Killing Escobar (David Whitney).
From a GFF 2022 industry perspective, Gardner points to, among other events, BFI director Mia Bays’ arrival in Glasgow on March 8 (International Women’s Day) to attend a ‘listening event’ during which she is presented the range of different perspectives from across the Scottish sector “to ensure she is connecting and listening to those working in the regions and nations when shaping her strategy for the BFI Film Fund.”
The same day sees a Break the Bias session, presented in partnership with Birds Eye View, which aims to hear from filmmakers about their work, and about their experiences of facing barriers to inclusion in the industry, especially for “those without connections, financial privileges and facing intersecting systems of oppression.”
Also on March 8, some of Scotland’s prominent women programmers and curators will talk about how they programme, why they programme the way they do, and how do they see their place within the world of film.
On March 10, the industry programme will investigate wellbeing on and off set, a presentation of BFI Diversity Standards, an assessment of sustainable production in the UK and an analysis of the current state of the Scottish industry, what the recent ‘boom’ means for Scottish filmmakers, and the consequences of developments on the sector.
Earlier in the festival, on March 6, professionals will get to opportunity to quiz Hannah Bush Bailey of the BFI Doc Society on how to access the Doc Society Fund, and to discuss short film production, editorial and creative storytelling, budgeting and scheduling and distribution. On the same day, BFI Doc Society’s Suzanne Alizart will be on hand to explain BFI Fund process, informal legal or contracting questions and everything pertaining to the BFI Doc Society Fund.
GFF’s Gardner stresses how no staff at the non-profit fest are employed on zero-hours contracts and that, during Covid, all were paid 100% of their salaries. “And we also paid them all a percentage of overtime based on what they earned the year before. So I’m really proud as the CEO that we looked after our staff,” she says. “We didn’t we make anybody redundant. So for me, that is a huge win. And that’s something that I’m going to keep talking about, because we should support those organizations who have looked after [their] people.”
