The tenth Glasgow Film Festival supported by Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, Event Scotland, Creative Scotland and The BFI, closed tonight with the Scottish Premiere of Under the Skin. A packed programme of 369 screenings, panel discussions, live performances and pop-up cinema events ran across the city throughout February, and while final box office figures were unavailable at time of going to press, organisers can confirm that they’ve already broken 40,000 total admissions, and are delighted that the Festival has managed to reach that particular milestone in ten years.

Allan Hunter, Festival Co-Director, said:
‘This has been a thrilling tenth edition of Glasgow Film Festival. Our loyal and growing audience have more than confirmed their status as one of the best festival crowds in the world, greeting our guests with rousing welcomes and standing ovations, and, as the numbers show, turning up in droves. We put together a huge programme of UK and European premieres, vintage treats and the unique pop-up events that have become a GFF speciality, and our audiences have provided us with enough encouragement and love to keep the Festival going. We’re all happily exhausted, inspired and glowing with gratitude that such a marvellous team effort has been met by such a generous public vote of confidence. Roll on 2015!’

STARS VISIT THE CITY
From the start of Glasgow Youth Film Festival on Sunday 2 February to tonight’s Scottish premiere ofUnder the Skin, the Festival has brought over 300 guests to the city. Oscar-winner Richard Dreyfussjoined actor-turned-director Jason Priestley on the red carpet outside Glasgow Film Theatre for the UK premiere of Cas & Dylan; director and former/present Python Terry Gilliam brought his new film The Zero Theorem; rising star Jack O’Connell (soon to be known as the lead in both Angelina Jolie’sUnbroken and 300: Rise of An Empire) joined director David Mackenzie and writer Jonathan Asser to promote Starred Up; Richard Ayoade came in support of The Double, while Jonathan Glazer and Paul Brannigan attended the Closing Gala for Under the Skin. Some of the Festival’s most magical moments came courtesy of the guests, too: legendary director George Sluizer got a much-deserved standing ovation from a full Cinema 1 when he presented the final cut of Dark Blood, River Phoenix’s final film; the original inspiration for ‘Brown Sugar’, Claudia Lennear, treated the audience of 20 Feet from Stardom to an incredible acapella musical performance; while Black Angel director Roger Christian brought a long-lost film back to life, and revealed how he created the lightsaber! Glasgow Music and Film Festival took in performances from rapper Danny Brown, Admiral Fallow, DJ Carl Craig and Goblin, while My Mad Fat Diary’s Sharon Rooney and Katie Morag creator Mairi Hedderwickdelighted teenage and schoolage audiences of Glasgow Youth Film Festival.

CINEMAS POPPING UP ALL OVER THE PLACE
In its tenth year, the Festival extended well beyond the walls of Glasgow’s traditional cinema spaces, transforming some of the city’s most unique and dramatic spaces into pop-up cinema spaces. Glasgow’s grandest Gothic gallery, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, was the perfect backdrop to a fancy-dress gala screening of Young Frankenstein, complete with atmospheric live organ performance. The bravest Festival-goers were recruited for a mysterious ‘potholing expedition’ (and surprise screening of The Descent) in the caverns underneath Central Station, while The Glue Factory in the north of the city was turned into a retro video game arcade for a screening of Tron. Seafaring cinephiles climbed aboard Glasgow’s Tall Ship, The Glenlee, for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Pete’s Dragon, and a late-night screening of John Carpenter’s The Fog, while Grand Central Hotel made a perfect setting for the themed party following the Festival’s Opening Gala, the UK premiere of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. The Festival also partnered up with Street Food Cartel for a series of Street Food Cinema screenings of beloved foodie classics in Glasgow’s former fishmarket, The Briggait, while Scottish indie-pop darlings Admiral Fallowplayed a sold-out tenth birthday concert/film event at The Old Fruitmarket.

SHORT FILM SUCCESS
Glasgow Short Film Festival also enjoyed a very successful year – The Bill Douglas Award for International Short Film was won by Chinese director Zhu Rikun’s The Questioning (Special mentionHow to Abandon Ship by Robin McKay), with the Audience Award going to Yak Butter Lamp by Hu Wei; while The Scottish Short Film Award, sponsored by Mother India’s Café, went to Getting On by Ewan Stewart (Special Mention No Hope for Men Below by Adam Stafford), and the Audience prize going toExchange & Mart by Cara Connolly and Martin Clark.

Allison Gardner, Co-Director of Glasgow Film Festival, said: ‘This year our programme commemorates three anniversaries; ten years of Glasgow Film Festival, forty years of GFT and 75 years of a cinema on our Rose Street site. We’re absolutely delighted GFF has made it into double figures and past 40,000 admissions, and we intend to keep on producing exciting, unusual and accessible events, celebrating cinema across the city, side-by-side with our audiences. Here’s to another wonderful decade.’