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| Minari Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute |
Glasgow Film Festival has announced it will open with the UK premiere of Sundance- winning indie drama Minari on February 24 and will close with the UK premiere of Suzanne Lindon's debut Spring Blossom on March 7.
The festival has also announced it is taking its premieres to 22 partner cinemas across the UK next year, while films will also be available to screen via its online platform Glasgow Film At Home.
Allison Gardner, Glasgow Film CEO and co-director of Glasgow Film Festival, said: “Working in partnership with cinemas all around the UK means we can bring fantastic films and premieres to audiences across the four nations and still give that big screen experience that makes cinema so exciting.”
Each partner cinema will show the Opening and Closing films of the festival, as well as a selection of cinema-only screenings from the festival programme, to be announced in next month.
Lee Isaac Chung's Minari is an autobiographical film about a Korean family trying to make a new life for themselves in Eighties Arkansas, starring Steven Yeun. Lindon's Spring Blossom is an elegant tale of a bored Parisian student (Lindon), tired of her routine, who meets an older actor, Raphaël (Arnaud Valois), outside the theatre she passes each day. Curiosity gradually turns to infatuation in a tale of first love that unfolds in the streets and cafes of a sun-kissed Monmartre.
Chung said: “I am honoured that Minari will have its UK premiere at Glasgow Film Festival. We made this film in 2019 in a very different time, hoping that the story would connect with audiences all around the world. What I wouldn’t give for the fantasy then, that along the run, I might travel to the Glasgow Film Theatre and join with Scotland’s best cinephiles. In any case, I’m grateful to the festival for this opportunity, and I salute all their best efforts to showcase films during our strange times. Minari is a story of immigrants living in a new land while reinventing what it means to be a family. We are all immigrants now.”
Lindon said: "When I learned that the Glasgow Film Festival had chosen Spring Blossom to be the closing film, I felt very honoured and I realised how lucky I was. Having a passion and being able to live it and to share it with the world is very precious and extremely rare. Today, I realise that this is what happens to me, and I never thought that I would be able to live this experience so young, at only 20. It gives me hope, strength and it intensifies my desire to make films, to play and to feel free to express myself through cinema."
Allan Hunter, Glasgow Film Festival co-director, added: “Spring Blossom is a dream of a film. Suzanne Lindon’s autobiographical debut feature is a tale of first love that unfolds on the streets of Montmartre. A major new talent is revealed in a film that captures the promise of life when the sun is shining, the heart is full and the future is filled with possibilities. It sets a perfect mood for the Festival’s Closing Gala and for a time when we all hope to be looking towards brighter days.“
The full programme for GFF will be announced on January 14. Tickets for the programme, including the Opening and Closing films, will go on sale on Monday, January 18. Find more information at www.glasgowfilm.org/festival
