POPCORN at the ready as Glasgow Film Festival kicks off tomorrow with a star-studded list of features.

 

It opens with the European premiere of Noah Baumbach's While You're Young, starring Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts.

This is the 11th year of the event and for the first time has its own Audience Award, which asks the ticket-buying public to vote on a selection of ten films by first and second-time directors.

Packed with UK, European and world premieres, the festival runs until March 1 and also includes screenings of cinema classics in unusual pop-up venues across the city.

"Glasgow's love affair with the movies is a passion that never fades and one that lies at the heart of this year's festival," said co-director of the event Allan Hunter.

"Our Cinema City strand celebrates the love affair in special screenings, talks and an exhibition. Some amazing pop-up events in stunning locations across Glasgow help put the city centre stage, too.

"It feels only appropriate that our Audience Award asks the best festival audience in the world to give their stamp of approval to a dazzling new talent.

"It is a festival filled with people and places close to home but also one that embraces a diverse, wonderful world of cinema, perfectly illustrated by our opening and closing galas. It's a huge honour for GFF to be chosen for the European Premiere of Noah Baumbach's bittersweet delight While We're Young, and Ruben Östlund's Force Majeure is an utterly brilliant film. Home and away, this is a festival for everyone who loves the movies.'

Among the big names to attend this year is Love Actually and Harry Potter actor Alan Rickman, who has directed and appears in A Little Chaos.

The film stars Kate Winslet as a strong-willed landscape gardener who challenges sexual and class barriers when she is chosen to build one of the main gardens at King Louis XIV's (played by Rickman) new palace at Versailles.

And Scottish actor Gary Lewis who will be walking down the red carpet ahead of the screening of his new film Catch Me Daddy, a suspense-packed focus on honour killings filmed on the Yorkshire Moors.

Screenwriter and actor Alan McKenna will be in town for the screening of Pressure, following the story of four divers stuck in a submarine at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

And Richard Johnson, who appeared in The Haunting and The Boy With the Striped Pajamas, will be in Glasgow with Bridget Jones' Diary star Gemma Jones for the film Radiator, one of 10 films in competition for the which recognises outstanding work by debut and sophomore directors.

This year's festival also includes six China-related films, including murder mystery Black Coal, Thin Ice, winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin Film Festival, starring Liao Fan and Gwei Lun-Mei.

This year's programme also pays tribute to Ingrid Bergman as an early feminist icon and celebrates Glasgow as a city hooked on the silver screen.

"As ever, we've tried first and foremost to create a programme that our audiences will enjoy, and our Special Events strand in particular should be great fun for all," said co-director Allison Gardner.

" There are certain happy accidents that you only notice once you've pulled the programme together - in particular, we have exceptionally strong ranges of East Asian cinema and documentary film making this year, with very exciting UK and European premieres from some of the world's most highly-regarded directors.

"Again accidentally, there's a strong feminist slant running through this year's selection, with some hugely talented female directors coming to the fore, a number of events addressing women in - and on - film, and a series of exceptionally strong lead roles for women in all areas of the programme.

"We didn't set out to create a 50/50 gender-balanced shortlist for our inaugural Audience Award - these are the programming team's ten top films across the programme by early-career directors - but the fact that it happened anyway speaks to the increasingly large number of female directors finding ways to make brilliant, innovative cinema, and is we hope a really positive sign that the historic imbalance in the industry is changing."