Glasgow Short Film Festival 2024
We are very excited to welcome back one of our favourite festivals to Civic House – Glasgow Short Film Festival returns this March for their 17th edition with an exciting programme of films, events and workshops!
March 20th – 24th
Ticketed – with sliding scale
GSFF’s 2024 programme includes a deep dive into their archives with rediscovered works and experimental reappropriation; a focus on Moroccan filmmaker Randa Maroufi; a portmanteau film portrait of Govanhill; and a thematic strand in defiance of oppression.
Events are individually ticketed and are located across Civic House, CCA Glasgow and Glasgow Film Theatre.
Check out the full programme and purchase tickets HERE
About 2024’s programme:
This year we invite audiences to reflect on collectivity, liberation and archives, with a special strand entitled Towards Liberation. Towards Liberation will utilise archive, documentary and fictional short films from across the globe to examine threads around imprisonment, imperialism, representation and resistance. The strand will include a programme of Palestinian short films (Weapons of criticism and dedicated consciousness), which will be followed by a live performance by British-Palestinian musician and sound artist Kareem Samara, whose joining of traditional and contemporary genres explores threads of decolonial possibilities and diasporic identity. 50% of ticket sales from this screening will be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians.
We present a spotlight on French-Moroccan filmmaker Randa Maroufi (Bab Sebta, Barbès, Close-Up), who will be in attendance for a retrospective screening and in-conversation event. Born in Casablanca and based in Paris, Maroufi carefully stages moving image works that observe layers of socio-political realities, often focusing on the images and narratives of public spaces and who occupies them, the seen and unseen, interrogating and subverting their conventions. Complementing this focus is Beyond The Seventh Gate: a programme of contemporary Moroccan artist moving image work.
Our collaboration with archive collective Invisible Women offers an expanded focus on the rarely seen and boundary-pushing films of 1970s Mexican feminist filmmaking group Cine Mujer, exploring gender roles and domestic labour. Durban-born artist Jyoti Mistry presents her triptych of works reappropriating archive footage to unearth representations of those historically marginalised. And we unveil a brand new portmanteau portrait of Govanhill and its communities.
Late night programming includes Følkøric, a two part strand tracing traditional and contemporary visions of folklore on film, spanning decades of classic folk-horror, subversive storytelling and fresh influences on the folklore canon. Comedy and cult thrills are provided in For Shorts & Giggles and Short Stirrers. We present two programmes of Festival Faves, and regulars Family Shorts, Café Flicker and Visible Cinema return.
The festival opens with Bill Douglas Unseen Super 8, six early never before screened 8mm films by the great Scottish filmmaker for whom our international competition is named, charting his development as a visual storyteller, accompanied by a live score composed and performed by Scottish musician Gerard Black. And of course at the heart of this year’s programme are our three competitions, the Bill Douglas Award, the Scottish Competition and the Young Scottish Filmmaker Prize.
Guest Curators
Beyond The Seventh Gate: contemporary Moroccan artists’ moving image – Myriam Mouflih
Bill Douglas Unseen Super 8 – Andy Kimpton-Nye
Cine Mujer – Invisible Women
Følkløric – Heather Bradshaw and Grace Feinmann
Events are individually ticketed and are located across Civic House, CCA Glasgow and Glasgow Film Theatre.
Check out the full programme and purchase tickets HERE
GSFF 2024 Programme at Civic House:
Thursday 21 March
Følkløric 1: Sticks and Stones @ 21:00
In a two programme strand, Følkøric traces traditional and contemporary visions of folklore on film, spanning decades of classic folk-horror, subversive storytelling and fresh influences on the folklore canon.
Programme 1: Sticks and Stones invites you to experience folklore in all its terrible glory; evoking spirits from ancient stones, fetish from brotherly feuds and the skewed, fiery penances of a hive mind. Celebrate the haunting force of folk-storytelling from the depths of pastoral hell, featuring films by local filmmakers and the classic BBC Ghost Story for Christmas Stigma on the big screen.
Folkloric
Friday 22 March
Funders Roundtable 1: Short Circuit & Little Pictures @ 12:45
The Scottish short fiction funding pipeline explained! Join the teams behind Short Circuit’s Sharp Shorts and GMAC Film’s Little Pictures schemes to find out about the funds’ processes, what they’re looking for in proposals, how they work with filmmakers across script development and production, and what training and support they provide throughout the year. A perfect opportunity for emerging fiction filmmakers to hear from key talent development projects in Scotland, and make personal connections with the teams.
Funders Roundtable 2: Scottish Documentary Institute & BFI Doc Society @ 14:30
Do you have a bold idea for a short documentary? Do you want to know more about what funders are looking for and how they work with film teams? Join representatives from Scottish Documentary Institute and BFI Doc Society for a presentation of their Bridging the Gap and Made of Truth short film funds, their processes and support, illustrated by two case study talks. We will be joined by Eilidh Munro, director of A Long Winter (Bridging the Gap), and Tolu Stedford, producer of The Medallion (Made of Truth; screening in our Bill Douglas Award competition).
For Shorts & Giggles
Welcome back to our regular showcase of the sharpest young bucks on the comedy block. This year sees welcome return visits from several comic alumni: lofi deadpan animator Paolo Chianta (Tap Runner, 2022), producer Alistair Hope-Morely (Pedwar, also 2022) who seems to be singlehandedly defining the hipsters-in-darkest-Wales subgenre of comedy-horror, and Louis Paxton (can’t be bothered to list them all here, but we’ve been showing them solidly since 2010).
Hijinks on a hen-do and drunken dates lead to cringey outcomes, whilst Nordic self-satisfied repression is explored in more than one film. The programme ends with a title torn from our Bill Douglas Award selection (often unfairly characterised as laugh-free), a truly masterful animation about a kids’ puppet TV show that continues production despite the death of its maker.
Følkløric 2: What a Shame She Went Mad @ 20:45
In a two programme strand, Følkøric traces traditional and contemporary visions of folklore on film, spanning decades of classic folk-horror, subversive storytelling and fresh influences on the folklore canon.
The sharp teeth of adolescence; the digital disease of vampirism; the supernatural vigor of a woman scorned. What a Shame She Went Mad merges the folkloric voice of prophetic warnings with twisted visions of feminine intuition, culminating in a cinematic ritual of reclamation. Including an International scale of filmmakers, this companion programme subverts the traditionalism of Sticks and Stones through a feminist lens, exposing the worth of archaic rebellion and the evolution of folklore as we know it.
Saturday 23 March
Towards Liberation: Filmmaker Roundtable @ 11:15
An open conversation with documentary filmmakers from across this year’s GSFF programme, drawing on their experiences of making political films and making films politically, and addressing the place of cinema in ongoing struggles for freedom, self-expression, and reclaiming identity and history. This panel will explore the motivations and responsibilities of filmmakers, the impact that films can have within festival spaces and beyond, and consider how documentaries driven by care and ethics can counter empathic distress.
Towards Liberation
Reframing Archive: Invisible Women in conversation with Jyoti Mistry and Emily Munro @ 13:00
Time for the archive lovers and curious to assemble. Throughout this year’s programme we find a wealth of works that reappropriate and recontextualise archive and found footage, often as a political act. To discuss their own research and practice of working with archives, we are pleased to welcome Jyoti Mistry to Glasgow, whose triptych We Come In Peace, They Said is screening on Friday evening, and Emily Munro, whose film Childish is screening in our Scottish Competition. This conversation will be hosted by Lauren Clarke from Invisible Women, who are presenting a two-programme strand on 1970s Mexican feminist collective Cine Mujer at this year’s festival (screening on Thursday and Saturday night).
A great opportunity for filmmakers who are interested in engaging with archives and repurposing found footage.
Towards Liberation 3: Weapons of criticism and dedicated consciousness
+ Live music by Kareem Samara @ 19:30
The title of this programme comes from a quote by late Palestinian critic and activist Edward Said, who we also hear speak in the opening film 20 Handshakes For Peace. Over 5 minutes, this found footage appropriation by Mahdi Fleifel repeats the broadcast footage of Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin’s handshake that settled the 1993 Oslo Accord, which Said strongly criticised. In 2003, Annemarie Jacir’s Like Twenty Impossibles became the first-ever Arab short film selected in Cannes, following a Palestinian film crew’s journey, challenged by the oppressive mechanics of the occupation and lack of freedom of movement. In Your father was born 100 years old and so was the Nakba (Razan AlSalah), an older Palestinian woman uses Google Streetview as her only means to see her former hometown, unable to return physically, while Memory of the Land (Samira Badran) uses a visceral and surrealist animation style to create a sense of the mental and physical violence Palestinians are subjected to at checkpoints. We find an expansive speculative sci-fi vision in In The Future They Ate From The Finest Porcelain – part of Larissa Sansour’s sci-fi trilogy – which focuses on a fictional resistance group to speak to forced disappearance, claims to land, nation and identity. Finishing the programme is another film by Mahdi Fleifel, who has a long relationship with GSFF, and therefore his films fittingly bookend this programme. I Signed The Petition, in which a Palestinian man tries to navigate his feelings and motivations for supporting a boycott movement, is a suitable point of reflection on collective action and solidarity for us all.
This screening will be followed by a live performance by British-Palestinian musician and sound artist Kareem Samara, whose joining of traditional and contemporary genres explores threads of decolonial possibilities and diasporic identity. We close with a DJ set by Joumana!
The performance will be free, in Civic House canteen. Capacity is limited and priority will be given to screening ticket holders.
50% of ticket sales from the screening will be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians.
Towards Liberation 4: Repurposed for dissent + Q&A also playing at 14:30 on Sunday
Sunday 24 March
Journey through time and space in this year’s Family Shorts animation programme: visiting giant chickens, sneezing crocodiles, and floating houses. Travel to the past to build a house with cavemen or to a distant future to work alongside robot bees. Meet the residents of a space tornado and resist the sheep king’s reign of terror. This ever-popular programme is a relaxed screening suitable for all ages, and is followed by a free drop-in animation workshop.
Warning: Don’t get distracted by any rabbits.
Family Shorts
Bill Douglas Award 6: Mediated through the body + Q&A @ 16:30
Our final GSFF24 Bill Douglas Award programme, and we’re not going out lightly. This selection of films consider various forms of physical trauma and history, and what human bodies are subjected to, whether through political control, or individual motivations. Loving In Between is an experimental archive remix on queer expression, and the final part of Jyoti Mistry’s triptych We Come in Peace, They Said, which we’re also showing in full in the presence of the artist. The dystopian, droll and imaginative animation Matta and Matto is a rare example of a film nodding to the COVID-19 pandemic that we welcome, and offers a peculiar reflection on human contact and control. Patient is an insightful documentary experiment about healthcare, workers and patients that works through layers of performance and reality, while The Body Dissolver is the newest from GSFF23 alumnus Dominik Ritszel, and delivers a visceral body horror-esque rumination on the boxers’ experiences of the knock-out moment. We close with the poetic and contemplative Ever Since, I Have Been Flying, a nomadic Kurdish man’s personal testimony in three parts, touching on cultural identity, love, violence, and resistance.
Bill Douglas 6 (Loving in between)
About Glasgow Short Film Festival:
Since 2008, Glasgow Short Film Festival has been the leading short film event in Scotland. We host an inclusive community of filmmakers and film lovers, showcasing ground-breaking works of visual storytelling. The festival nurtures, promotes and inspires diverse forms of cinematic expression, in Scotland and around the world. In everything we do, we aim to be critical and curious, welcoming and accessible.
Support GSFF HERE