Have you ever wanted to recreate Indiana Jones’ boulder chase scene in the grand hall of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum? Or wondered what a film screening at Glasgow’s legendary gig venue Barrowland Ballroom would be like? Glasgow Film Festival is excited to confirm the first few special events of its 2016 programme, with tickets for these events on sale from noon on Thursday 17 December, turning a number of iconic venues across the city into perfectly-programmed pop-up cinema spaces. The festival is also delighted to announce that ScottishPower have come on board to sponsor the newly-established Audience Award this year.
GFF has built a reputation for its site-specific screenings and pop-up cinema events over the years (famously screening Jaws in the hull of Glasgow’s Tall Ship and The Passion of Joan of Arc in Glasgow Cathedral). In 2016 they’re working with a number of the city’s most famous venues for the first time, including The Barrowland Ballroom, Tramway, and Glasgow Planetarium, to screen new works and classic films celebrating significant anniversaries
The festival returns once again to favourite venue Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, with two spectacular anniversary screenings in one night. First off, a museum crammed full of ancient artefacts seems like the perfect place to join action-archaeologist Indiana Jones…or at 
least his stuntman: Vic Armstrong, Guinness Book of Records-certified most prolific stunt performer in the world, who has doubled for Harrison Ford in almost all of his stunts, introduces a thirty-fifth anniversary screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. A live action/ adventure presentation will precede the screening, so do look out for the boulders…
Later that night, GFF will turn the Kelvingrove lights down very low indeed for a super-creepy late-night screening of twenty-five year old horror classic The Silence of the Lambs, complete with live organ music, and glasses of nice Chianti…
Kelvingrove isn’t the only iconic Glasgow venue GFF is making use of, with two new spaces turning into festival venues for the first time in 2016. Playing a gig at Barrowland Ballroom is a rite of passage for every band in the UK (and beyond): names from David Bowie to Cypress Hill to Radiohead to Bjork have graced the stage since it reopened as a rock venue in 1960. In February it turns into a cinema for the first time ever, to host the UK premiere screening of Where You’re Meant To Be, created by award-winning filmmaker Paul Fegan, following cult musician Aidan Moffat (Arab Strap) on a trip round Scotland and its folk song history. A concert bringing together a number of the traditional and contemporary musicians from the film will surround the screening.
David Bowie’s iconic turn in The Man Who Fell To Earth is forty years old in 2016; where better to view it than inside the Space Zone on the spectacular screen of the Glasgow Science Centre Planetarium, following a guided tour through the solar system and special visual treats on their incredible 360° full dome screen.
GFF also returns to Tramway, fresh from hosting the Turner Prize, for the first time since 2012. The Southside arts space will house exhibition, performance and screening This is Now: Film and Video After Punk (1978-85), a series of digitally remastered archive films by artists including John Maybury, Grayson Perry, Cordelia Swann and Jill Westwood, many of which have been out of circulation for over thirty years. The exhibition will be accompanied by a night celebrating the spirit of punk and New Wave music, with musicians and DJs including Optimo’s JD Twitch. The programme is presented in partnership with LUX and the BFI National Archive. The UK tour of This Is Now has been developed with the support of the BFI, awarding funds from the National Lottery.
Glasgow Film Festival is also very excited to announce a new partnership for the upcoming festival. 2015 saw the launch of GFF’s inaugural Audience Award, the festival’s first-ever competition, with ten films by first- or second-time directors competing for votes by the audience. The festival is delighted to announce that the competition will return this year, and that thanks to generous sponsorship by ScottishPower, all of the nominated directors will be invited to Scotland for the festival, to talk to audiences about their films.
The twelfth annual Glasgow Film Festival will run from 17–28 February 2016. Tickets for the events at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the Barrowland Ballroom and Tramway go on sale on Thursday 17 December; The Man Who Fell To Earth will be available with the main festival programme, which will be launched on the evening of Wednesday 20 January and will be online from Thursday 21 January, with tickets on sale from Monday 25 January at 10am.
