‘Dangerous Dames’ heading to Glasgow Film Festival
Glasgow Film Festival will celebrate the big screen’s sultriest femmes fatales in its 2017 programme, and explore the vibrancy of New Canadian Cinema
The first details of next year’s Glasgow Film Festival (15-26 Feb) have been announced, promising a film noir retrospective of ‘dangerous dames’ and a country focus to mark 150 years of Canada’s confederation.
‘Women behaving (very) badly’
This year’s retrospective, Dangerous Dames, will celebrate cinema’s most dangerous and seductive of characters: the femme fatale. GFF will screen great film noirs featuring the sultriest of these screen anti-heroes. Among the strand’s highlights are Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past, where Jane Greer disrupts the life of small-town gas station owner Robert Mitchum; the wonderful Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven as an obsessive socialite who embarks on a whirlwind marriage; and blistering neo-noir The Last Seduction, where Linda Fiorentino runs rings around everyone.
“It’s a collection of some of the finest film noir thrillers ever made,” says GFF co-director Allan Hunter of the programme. He describes these films as “dark, twisted tales of murder and revenge built around complex starring roles for some of Hollywood’s most powerful women.”
As well as the films mentioned above, there’s also a chance to see classics like The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown on the big screen. And like last year, these retrospective screenings are free, opening up the festival to people who might not be able to attend otherwise. "We’re making audiences an offer they can’t refuse,” says Hunter.
As GFF says, the retrospective is “the perfect excuse for audiences to reacquaint themselves with some women behaving (very) badly.”
O Canada
Also announced today is GFF17’s country focus: Canada – a place many Americans are currently considering for their new home. Marking the 150-year anniversary of Canada’s confederation, GFF's True North strand promises a programme of “strikingly original new and rediscovered voices in independent Canadian cinema.”
Fitting the latter description is A Cool Sound From Hell, Sidney J. Furie’s long-thought-lost record of hipster culture in 50s Toronto – GFF call it an “ageless gem”. In terms of work from mint fresh Canadian talent, there’s hotly tipped Quebec filmmaker Chloé Robichaud’s Boundaries, described as “a dazzling satire on the exploitation of Canada's natural resources.”
There’s also Philippe Lesage's The Demons, “an atmospheric take on childhood fears spilling into the real world”, and animated coming-of-ager Window Horses.
“We want to reflect the bigger picture of all the exciting diversity in Canadian filmmaking from thrilling new talents to stunning animation,” says GFF co-director Allison Gardner. “We have also delved into the archives for a vision of yesteryear hipsters from 1950s Toronto. I think audiences will love this window into a filmmaking nation that is often unsung in British cinemas.”
Glasgow Film Festival runs 15-26 Feb
Read news of GFF's special Sound + Music event to mark the release of Glasgow music documentary Lost in France here
The GFF 2017 Industry programme runs 22-24 Feb; early bird passes are now on sale via glasgowfilm.org/festival
The Festival’s Opening and Closing Galas will be announced on 5 Jan, and the full programme will be announced on 18 Jan. Keep an eye on theskinny.co.uk/film for more details