Explore the films of Elaine May at the 2019… | Little White Lies

Festivals

Explore the films of Elaine May at the 2019 Glas­gow Film Festival

23 Jan 2019

Words by David Jenkins

Two people in 1970s clothing - man in checked suit, woman with long blonde hair and sunglasses.
Two people in 1970s clothing - man in checked suit, woman with long blonde hair and sunglasses.
A full ret­ro­spec­tive of this beloved director’s work caps off a tan­ta­lis­ing programme.

The Glas­gow Film Fes­ti­val is back for its 15th edi­tion next month, and the full pro­gramme is now live for pub­lic perusal. And we reck­on it’s some­thing of a banger, even by their own sky-high stan­dards. Those search­ing for some­thing new and excit­ing can dive into sev­en world pre­mieres, includ­ing new work from Matt Pin­der (Har­ry Bir­rell: Films of Love and War), Alber­ta Whit­tle (between a whis­per and a cry) and Jack McHen­ry (Here Comes Hell!, billed as Down­ton Abbey meets The Evil Dead).

There’s a chance to get the jump on a few indie treats from across the pond, includ­ing Bo Burnham’s charm­ing Eighth Grade, Patrick Wang’s A Bread Fac­to­ry and Stephen Merchant’s solo direc­to­r­i­al debut, Fight­ing with My Fam­i­ly. Jon­ah Hill’s nos­tal­gic skater dra­ma Mid90s has already been announced as the fes­ti­val opener.

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The line-up con­tains more films than we could pos­si­bly men­tion here (no few­er than 102 UK and 49 Scot­tish pre­mieres), but the scope for dis­cov­ery is mas­sive. As usu­al, there are lav­ish Spe­cial Event screen­ings of fan favourites, with Fight Club, Ghost­busters and The Blair Witch Project get­ting the treat­ment this year.

There’s also a focus on local tal­ent, as well as a sur­vey of the mas­ter auteurs cur­rent­ly on the scene. The always inter­est­ing Sound & Vision strand returns with focus on music in and on film – we’re excit­ed to catch Lance Bangs’ Son­ic Youth con­cert film, Day­dream Nation, not to men­tion Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell (for the sec­ond time, because it’s so damn good).

Fam­i­lies are catered for with new ani­mat­ed and child-cen­tric offer­ings, and on the oth­er side of the spec­trum there’s also space giv­en to more chal­leng­ing offer­ings from artists and exper­i­men­tal film­mak­ers in the Cross­ing the Line and Future Cult strands.

The cher­ry on the cake is a full ret­ro­spec­tive of fea­tures direct­ed by the great Elaine May, whose career was unfor­tu­nate­ly derailed in the 1980s due to the com­mer­cial fail­ure of the film Ishtar. The chance to see her work on the big screen is very rare, espe­cial­ly the long-unavail­able The Heart­break Kid, which is pow­ered by an all-timer com­ic turn by the great Charles Grodin.

A focus on new cin­e­ma from Bel­gium and a hark back to mov­ing image high­lights of 1969 rounds out a bumper pro­grammed. Leaves noth­ing more to say than get book­ing, and see you in the mid­night sing-a-long screen­ing of Team Amer­i­ca: World Police.

The 2019 GFF runs 20 Feb­ru­ary to 3 March. Check out the full pro­gramme now at glas​gow​film​.org

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