Glasgow Film Festival 2014 To Shine Spotlight On 1939’s Hollywood

LONDON – The 10^th edition of the Glasgow Film Festival, an event now billed as the third biggest movie shindig in the U.K., aims to kickstart a nationwide debate over whether or not 1939 was Hollywood’s greatest year.

Organizers said next year’s event would play host to a strand named “1939: Hooray For Hollywood” and plans to screen that year’s best Oscar nomination roster.

For those without long-enough memories, those tilting at the best picture in 1939 were eventual winner Gone With The Wind, Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, Dark Victory, Love Affair, Goodbye Mr Chips, Ninotchka, Mr Smith Goes To Washington, Of Mice and Men and The Wizard of Oz.

Glasgow Film Festival organizers noted that aside from the roster of best picture nominations, most of which are now regarded as American cinema classics, 365 films were released in 1939 and 80 million tickets a week were sold.

Rather than celebrating the achievement of an individual actor in the festival’s retrospective program strand, this year GFF will screen all of the films and will whet local appetite with an advance screening of Gone With The Wind at Glasgow Film Theater in December.

1939 was an important year for the Scottish city also, as it was the year the Cosmo, only the second purpose-built art house movie theater in the U.K., opened its doors. It underwent a makeover, re-opening as Glasgow Film Theater forty years ago in 1974 and is one of the festival’s central venue.

The festival’s country focus for 2014 will be Chile and there is also a yet to be revealed series of pop-up cinema events rostered for every night of the festival apart from the opening and closing gala nights.

The full 2014 program, which will include a number of anniversary celebrations, will be announced Jan. 21, 2014. The event runs February 20 through March 2, 2014.

Opening in 2005 with 68 films over ten days, GFF has grown with over 39,000 admissions to 368 events at the 2013 festival edition which boasts fifty-seven U.K. premiere screenings and seven world premieres alongside guests including Joss Whedon, John C Reilly, Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan.

Glasgow Film Festival is funded by Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, Creative Scotland, Event Scotland and the British Film Institute’s film festival fund.

Glasgow Film Festival co-director Allan Hunter said the festival had grown and developed “in ways that we couldn’t have imagined in 2005.”
Hunter said: “It has been nurtured and sustained by the enthusiasm and passionate dedication of audiences from near and far who have come to regard Glasgow as their festival and an event they can trust to bring them the best cinematic experiences, the most accessible guests and the most affordable prices. We take the bond of trust with our audiences very seriously and look forward to presenting them with a 2014 programme that matches their expectations of what a Film Festival should be and how a special anniversary should be celebrated.”

Funding body Creative Scotland CEO Janet Archer said: “The Festival’s tenth anniversary programme is set to offer a strong, extensive and exciting variety of screenings and events.”