Glasgow Film Festival returns this year until March 12, boasting a programme with appeal to every filmgoer.

After Edinburgh International Film Festival’s parent charity went into administration, putting the life of the long-running festival into jeopardy, it’s more important than ever to celebrate our cultural institutions.

Film festivals are an excellent way of conveying our national identity, gain new perspectives and share and indulge in the art form of cinema. But this cannot be taken for granted. Culture is not a secure flank – it’s something that needs fought for and supported.

With that, what to see on Glasgow Film Festival’s return, given it encompasses 250 screenings across the city? Decisions need to be made and the breadth of interesting work being projected is daunting, so here is a closer look at the expansive programme for this year’s festival.

Premieres
The Herald:

Opening the proceedings is the UK premiere of debut feature Girl from Glasgow director Adura Onashile. The film observes the lives of an immigrant mother and daughter as they attempt a new life in Glasgow, exploring the alienating effect of being on the outside looking in.

Girl received its world premiere at Sundance Festival – a huge achievement for any filmmaker and even more impressive for such a new talent.

Read more: Glasgow Film Festival – Girl paints heartful portrait of immigrant life

Also in the mix for homegrown talent is the premiere of curator Jo Reid’s archival project The Freedom Machine that investigates the link between the bicycle and its role in women’s emancipation. And Glasgow writer Stuart Cosgrove sees his book on boxing legend Muhammed Ali transformed on the silver screen with the documentary Cassius X: Becoming Ali.

Horror sees its place within the programme too with the European premiere of Christopher Smith’s Consecration. Shot on the Isle of Skye, a woman travels to the island to uncover the suspicious circumstances of her priest brother’s death in a plot that recalls the mystery of Italian giallo.

The festival, as part of International Women’s Day, will screen BAFTA-nominated director Carol Morley’s road film Typist Artist Pirate King which dramatises the life of outsider artist Audrey Amiss. Amiss spent most of her life undiscovered in psychiatric units creating art, with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder pushing her sensibilities outside of the traditional art canon.

While Scottish/Hong Kong filmmaker San San F Young investigates the fight for creative freedom in the UK premiere of Hong Kong Mixtape. Amid China’s national security law that restricts what words and images can be presented in Hong Kong cinema, it asks a truly difficult question: would you be willing to spend life behind bars in the pursuit of free expression?

Viva el cine español!
The Herald:

Spain is a country with a rich cinematic tradition, yet it doesn’t seem to enjoy the same amount of focus as France and Germany when it comes to its identity on film.

The festival is set to screen eight contemporary films from the country to showcase its revival on the international circuit. Juan Diego Botto‘s On The Fringe pays homage to Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca, a grassroots activist group set up to halt evictions in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, and stars Penelope Cruz who has converted her Hollywood success into becoming the matron of Spanish drama.

Alberto Rodríguez’s Prison 77 grapples with the fingerprints of General Franco’s dictatorship, relaying the true story of a Barcelona prison break during the so-called transition period.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a fair representation of Spanish cinema without melodrama. Wild Flowers, directed by Jaime Rosales, explores the life of a single mother as she navigates her romantic life with men of completely different backgrounds. Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s first feature Lullaby, described by maverick director Pedro Almodovar as the best Spanish debut in years, considers the role of solidarity and community within motherhood.

Retrospectives
The Herald:

The retrospectives scheduled for the festival are free morning screenings, making them perfect for exploring cinema on a budget. This year the focus is on women in film, with the films of actress and director Lee Grant given the spotlight.

Grant was blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s during the prime of her career for defending an actor over accusations of communist activity, her name snowballing in anti-communist publications that would place the witch hunt in her direction. The festival is not screening her most famous roles, but rather showing her innovative documentaries that she directed later in life.

Battered puts a lens on the epidemic of domestic violence, Down and Out in America looks at the poverty incline of the Reagan years, while When Women Kill presents the seven stories of women convicted for murder in the USA in the early 1980s, including an interview with Leslie Van Houten from the Manson Family.

An assortment of films organised around the theme of women who take the lead is included and features classic films like Arthur Penn’s groundbreaking Bonnie and Clyde, Frank Capra’s pre-code comedy It Happened One Night, Ridley Scott’s feminist landmark road film Thelma & Louise and the late Jean-Luc Godard’s arthouse masterpiece Pierrot le Fou.

Also on the cards is a rewind on Hollywood actress Gloria Grahame, who appeared in It’s a Wonderful Life and The Greatest Show on Earth which saw her playing against James Stewart. Featuring is Vincente Minnelli’s 1952 melodrama The Bad and the Beautiful which netted Grahame an Oscar for best supporting actress and Robert Wise’s film noir Odds Against Tomorrow which helped cement the traditional wisdom of ‘there are no small parts’.