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Glasgow Film Festival · 2012

Glasgow Film Festival 2012

Scottish Shorts

A selection of Scottish short films made within the last year, which will be in competition at the festival. If you go to see some of them, your vote will count.

Programme

31 films · 13 reviews

Jump to a film

Asexual Healing

A young woman finds herself caught up in an unusual situation after waking one morning to find that her genitals are missing.

(Country: UK; Year: 2010; Director: Martha Appelt; Writer: Martha Appelt; Stars: Helen McAlpine, Damien Hughes, David Bishop, Lynette Robertson, Kenny Macleod)

Asylum

Review preview for Asylum

Scattershot, lurching, and with some moments that verge on racial caricature, this is perhaps best avoided.

Andrew Robertson · 1 out of 5
A failed asylum seeker dreams or running a bio-dynamic farm.

(Country: UK, Ireland; Year: 2010; Director: Joern Utkilen; Writer: Joern Utkilen; Stars: Mihai Arsene, Andy Cheung)

Full review

Bird

Musings on adolesence.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Alasdair Bayne)

A Cuillin Rising

Teenage lovers seek to escape from a cramped caravan and an angry father, on a remote island.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Catriona MacInnes; Writer: Catriona MacInnes; Stars: Lorne MacFadyen, Annie MacLeod, Robin Thomson)

Dogged

A dog strives to protect the family home from the bogeymen who eat people.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Jo Shaw; Writer: Jo Shaw; Stars: Lucy Goldie)

Egg & Fag (Egg And Fag)

A short exploration of one woman's environment.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Rose Hendry)

The Fisherman's Daughter

Review preview for The Fisherman's Daughter

Moody, meditative, and of tremendous quality.

Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
Concerned by local gossip, a father follows his daughter one night and discovers a tragic secret.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Tom P Chick; Writer: Tom P Chick; Stars: Kenna Barrow, Mark Jardine, Andrea McKenna)

Full review

Five, Six, Seven, Eight! (5, 6, 7, 8!)

A young man too shy to ask out the girl he adores becomes determined to win her heart by dancing, no matter how foolish he may look on an empty floor.

(Country: UK; Year: 2012; Director: Felipe Bustos Sierra; Stars: Cameron Hall, Anna Nierobisz, David Banks)

Fixing Luka

Review preview for Fixing Luka

Judith Johnstone's design and model making are tremendous.

Andrew Robertson · 3.5 out of 5
The animated story of a small girl trying to figure out how her brother works.

(Country: UK; Year: 2012; Director: Jessica Ashman; Writer: Jessica Ashman, Rosie Crerar, Paul Welsh)

Full review

The Golden Bird

Review preview for The Golden Bird

The fox that befriends our protagonist is quite an ominous fox.

Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
A boy who pursues a mysterious golden bird finds himself further and further from the world he thought he knew.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Cat Bruce; Writer: Cat Bruce; Stars: Dean James Fairbairn)

Full review

Guilt

A man is forced to ask himself some serious questions after losing his young mistress.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Hákon Pálsson; Writer: Hákon Pálsson; Stars: Dan Richardson, Julian Lee, Saskia Laroque Rothstein-Longaretti, Helen-Marie O'Malley)

James Dean

Sharing secrets complicates a family day out.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Lucy Asten Elliott; Stars: Elaine Blair, Lauren Dempsie, Vince Docherty, Laura McBain)

Jimmy

Review preview for Jimmy

Smith's restraint and Jimmy's drive combine to make a powerful portrait of a man and his work.

Andrew Robertson · 4.5 out of 5
A documentary about a disability rights campaigner who suffers from cerebral palsy.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Martin Smith; Stars: Jimmy MacIntosh)

Full review

Joking Apart

An experimental short film.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Ronald Forbes)

Kirkcaldy Man

Review preview for Kirkcaldy Man

This is a film of limited scope and surprising vista.

Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
A documentary about Jocky Wilson, his home town of Kirkcaldy and the mystery of his disappearance.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Julian Schwanitz)

Full review

The Lady With The Lamp

An accidental documentary in which the filmmaker's mother expresses her concerns about his bedside lamp.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Duncan Cowles)

Long Distance Information

Review preview for Long Distance Information

Long Distance Information depicts that phone call so well, the stilted awkwardness as you ask about things you don't care about.

Donald Munro · 4 out of 5
A phone call reveals the difficulties of estrangement within a family.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Douglas Hart; Writer: Douglas Hart; Stars: Peter Mullan, Alan Tripney, Caroline Paterson)

Full review

The Making Of Longbird

Review preview for The Making Of Longbird

Good, entertaining, verging at times on the self-indulgent.

Andrew Robertson · 3.5 out of 5
An animator struggles with the character he is creating.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Will Anderson; Writer: Ainslie Henderson, Will Anderson; Stars: Will Anderson, Tobias Feltus, Vitalij Sicinava)

Full review

Night Shift

Review preview for Night Shift

The film has sufficient tact and poise to let its subject speak for herself.

Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
A documentary about a woman who uses a double decker bus to help sex workers on the streets of Glasgow.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Ruth Reid; Stars: Anne Wallace)

Full review

No More Shall We Part

A couple struggling to survive in a small cottage in Canada after the Highland Clearances are confronted by an unexpected visitor.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Shaun Hughes; Writer: Shaun Hughes; Stars: Julian Lee, Simon Donaldson, Dawn Parylo)

Philippa & Nancy (Philippa And Nancy)

Review preview for Philippa & Nancy

The mockumentary is, by now, far from a fresh format, but this film brings so much fresh energy to it that the result it much more fun than you'd expect.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
Two friends demonstrate their unusual method of picking up men.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Paul White, Ciara Barry, Claire McInnes, Nora Smyth; Writer: Ciara Barry, Claire McInnes, Nora Smyth, Paul Whyte; Stars: Claire McInnes, Nora Smyth)

Full review See: Article about the 48 Hour Film Project

The Phone Box

A short comedy about a phone call and the cost of getting rich.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Ian Robertson; Writer: Ian Robertson; Stars: Andy Dow, Ceara East)

Pouncer

An encounter with a professional 'jumper ooter' on Edinburgh ghost tours who works hard to hone his craft.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Louis Paxton; Writer: Kris Wright, Louis Paxton; Stars: Grant O'Rourke, Neil Bratchpiece, Tyler Collins)

The Perfect Fit

Review preview for The Perfect Fit

It takes a special kind of documentarian to look behind the right curtain.

Andrew Robertson · 4.5 out of 5
A look at the craft of making ballet shoes and the damage done in the pursuit of art.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Tali Yankelevich)

Full review

Pitch Black Heist

Review preview for Pitch Black Heist

Shot in lush, vivid black and white, the film carries a sense of age and expectation.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
Two men team up to rob an office safe but they must work around a light-triggered alarm system.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: John Maclean; Writer: John Maclean; Stars: Liam Cunningham, Michael Fassbender, Alex MacQueen)

Full review

The Rule of Thumb

When a middle aged man attempts to impress his mother, things go horribly wrong.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Gregor Johnstone; Writer: Gregor Johnstone; Stars: Richard Dormer, Gary Lewis, Stella McCusker)

Saved

An 11 year old girl struggles to save herself from a plague that threatens to wipe out civilisation.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Stuart Elliott; Writer: Stuart Elliott; Stars: Gillean Young, Megan Fraser, Bailey Newsome, Eric Robertson)

Three-Legged Horses

An Edinburgh rickshaw-puller determined to make enough money to survive on before his knees are permanently damaged takes on one last, gruelling job.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Felipe Bustos Sierra; Writer: Felipe Bustos Sierra; Stars: Gavin Purdie, Simon Messer, Bryan Lowe, Maggie MacLeod, Hanna Stanbridge, Gilchrist Muir)

Tumult

Review preview for Tumult

The central performances are great - the warriors speak in the old tongue, subtitled.

Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
The chief of a band of battle-weary Norse warriors is about to hand over power to his son when they are confronted by something entirely unexpected.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Johnny Barrington; Writer: Johnny Barrington; Stars: Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson)

Full review See: Article about the Berwick Film Festival short film selection

Étude (Etude)

Voyeurism, moths and chain smoking cats feature in this beautiful piece of cut-out animation.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Ania Hazel Leszczynska)

Wind Over Lake

A short film that is accidentally about something.

(Country: UK; Year: 2011; Director: Jeorge Elkin; Writer: Jeorge Elkin; Stars: Katrina Bryan, Julie Candler, John Conboy, Giselle Hammond, Maree Innes)