Glasgow Film Festival Launches with UK Premiere of Love Lies Bleeding
The Kristen Stewart-led movie is just one of the many premieres happening at the festival’s twentieth edition
by Jack Howse
What would the start of the Glasgow Film Festival be without a wet and windy red carpet? As Graham Norton, Jean Johannson huddled in under umbrellas, the Glasgow Film Festival breathed a sigh of relief as months of planning had finally all come together
The premiere for this year’s festival was Love Lies Bleeding, a pulpy, sapphic, Americana crime movie starring queer heartthrob Kristen Stewart. The director Rose Glass was also there in attendance and gave a Q&A after, four years on from giving her debut feature Saint Maud premiering at the festival.
Stewart plays Lulu, who works at a gym in neon-studded Albuquerque where she meets Jackie (Katy O’Brian), an aspiring bodybuilder hitching across the desert to a competition in Las Vegas. Lulu’s family is a mess of smugglers and domestic abusers with Kristen only staying in the family unit to protect her sister Beth (Jena Malone).
The ensuing film is a heady mix of body horror, pulpy comedy and stylised drama. It is most successful when exploring the two former, with shrieks and chuckles being served in equal measure by the packed out audience at Glasgow Film Theatre.
Personally, I don’t think this film helps to prove that Kristen Stewart can act, which has been a topic of conversation around many queer bar tables for years. But – really – these same people don’t really care if she can not, we are just happy to see her in a vest and mullet on the big screen.
Love Lies Bleeding kicks off the 12 day festival which boasts 11 world and international premieres, 69 UK premieres and 15 Scottish premieres, from 44 countries.
There will also be several special events across the city such as a screening of John Waters classic Female Trouble at the Barras including acts from local Southside performers.
Scottish talent is represented strong at the festival including the world premiere of Tummy Monster, a hallucinogenic dark drama by Glasgow director Ciaran Lyons, starring rising Scottish star Lorn Macdonald; Glaswegian director Kevin Macdonald’s new documentary about John Galliano; and a new restoration of Billy Connolly: Big Banana Feet, the rarely-seen documentary shot during his 1975 tour of Ireland.
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World by Radu Jude is another big draw of the festival with a similar darkly comic bite. Set for the most part in modern-day Bucharest, the film follows Angela as she drives round the city casting for an accident-safety video for a multinational company. Ilinca Manolache as Angela is a star turn as the nearly three-hour film draws out histories of Romanian society and film and mixes it with contemporary woes like the gig economy, the war in Ukraine, and Romania’s worst import – our very own Andrew Tate.
The festival will close with the world premiere of Janey, an honest, moving and often hilarious documentary about Glasgow comedian Janey Godley, interweaving stories from her life with footage from her Not Dead Yet tour in the wake of her terminal cancer diagnosis and includes appearances from familiar faces like Nicola Sturgeon and Jimmy Carr.
Allison Gardner, CEO of Glasgow Film and Director of GFF, said: "Over the years, at Glasgow Film Festival, we have supported Scottish films and talent. Something that we are very proud to have done and this year is no exception. We also champion Scottish films from our past and this year we have some fantastic anniversaries to honour. Shallow Grave is 30 years old and Glaswegian Lynne Ramsay’s debut feature Ratcatcher screening from a new 4K print is 25 years old. Our motto is ‘Cinema For All’ and we strive to bring the best films from around the world to Glasgow. My advice to everyone is to choose films you know nothing about and take a chance, you might discover a hidden gem (and the programme is positively bursting with them!) that will stay with you forever. Here’s to the next 20 years.”
The Glasgow Film Festival runs until 10 March. Get your tickets at glasgowfilm.org