Glasgow Film Festival kicked off yesterday with its Opening Gala: a screening of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s (Amélie, A Very Long Engagement) new release, Micmacs. The film screened in both of the Glasgow Film Theatre’s auditoriums to packed audiences — sold-out mere days after the tickets went on sale. Though I missed the screening myself, everyone I spoke to were jovial and hadn’t a bad word to say about feature. I even managed to nab myself a bag of freebies from one convivial young man. So much for missing out!
Prior to the festival’s grand opening, the Cary Grant retrospective eased us into the festival mood with a screening of Bringing Up Baby — an hilarious comedy starring Katherine Hepburn alongside the charming leading man. One of the great comedies of the 1930s, it is everything Gilmore Girls aspires to be: a farcical romp, a wild goose chase, and hijinks aplenty wrapped into one classic rom-com flick.
The party really started after the screenings of Micmacs wrapped up. Filmgoers in their hundreds flooded into Glasgow Film Theatre’s Café Cosmo, upstairs bar, and GFT1. Replete with that intangible film festival spirit and rounded off with a free bar, there was not a scowl to be found. How often do you find yourself pleasantly intoxicated in a cinema auditorium? It was quite an experience.
If you missed Bringing Up Baby, an additional screening takes place at Grosvenor cinema on Ashton Lane on Sunday 21st February at 6pm.
Micmacs is due for UK-wide cinematic release on Friday 26th February.