Glasgow Film Festival welcomes Gemma Arterton for Premiere of THE ESCAPE and Jessie Buckley for Scottish Premiere of BEAST

The GFF red carpet will welcome Gemma Arterton for UK premiere of The Escape on 3 March and Jessie Buckley for Scottish premiere of Beast on 24 February

More star guests have been confirmed for this year’s Glasgow Film Festival

Festival favourite Gemma Arterton (Their Finest; Quantum of Solace) – who visited GFF13 with Saoirse Ronan for Neil Jordan’s Byzantium- will return for the UK premiere of tense domestic drama The Escape (3 Mar), alongside director Dominic Savage.

Star of hit TV shows War and Peace and Taboo Jessie Buckley will join director Michael Pearce for the Scottish premiere of the smouldering Jersey-set thriller Beast (24 Feb).

Renowned writer Bernard MacLaverty will attend a special retrospective screening of his modern Irish classic Cal (2 Mar), starring Helen Mirren and John Lynch, as part of the Ireland: The Near Shore strand.

Australian director Warwick Thornton (Samson and Delilah; Words With Gods) will introduce the Scottish premiere of his ravishing western Sweet Country (26 Feb), set in Australia’s Northern Territory.

They will be gracing the Glasgow Film Festival red carpet alongside the likes of Bill Pullman, Karen Gillan, David Tennant, Paddy Considine and Imogen Poots as the city gears up to host one of the UK’s biggest film festivals from 21st February to 4th March.

Tickets for all events are on sale now.

Allan Hunter, Glasgow Film Festival Co-Director said “We are all set to welcome a bumper array of special guests to the Glasgow Film Festival this year. I am thrilled that we have are now able to announce some illustrious additions to their ranks. Gemma Arterton is returning to the Festival with her stunning central performance in The Escape, rising star Jessie Buckley joins us for the first time with the thriller Beast and it is fantastic that director Warwick Thornton will be with us to present his award-winning Sweet Country. Audiences are in for a real treat.”

About Glasgow Film Festival
The fourteenth annual Glasgow Film Festival will run from 21 February – 4 March 2018.

Notable guests visiting the festival in recent years have included Richard Gere, Alan Rickman, Joss Whedon, Terry Gilliam, John C Reilly, Saoirse Ronan, Richard Dreyfuss, Jonathan Glazer, Richard Johnson, Gemma Arterton, Ben Wheatley, David Tennant, Cliff Curtis, David Robert Mitchell, Carol Morley, Gemma Jones, Jason Priestley, Neil Jordan, agnés b., Armando Iannucci, Jack O’Connell, Dexter Fletcher, Peter Mullan, George Sluizier, Peter Capaldi, Ty West, Richard Ayoade, Eli Roth and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The 2017 festival featured the red carpet world premiere of David Tennant’s Mad To Be Normal and logged over 41,000 admissions, cementing its reputation as one of Europe’s major film festivals.

Glasgow Film Festival would like to thank its major partners:

Glasgow Life is a charity which delivers services to both citizens and visitors to the city, providing opportunities through culture, sport and learning. Last year, more than 18 million attendances were recorded at venues, events and festivals – up more than one third since 2007. Some 2,600 staff and 2,200 volunteers deliver services across 160 Glasgow Life venues.

Glasgow Life has responsibility for: managing nine award-winning civic museums, including Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the Riverside Museum and the Burrell Collection as well as the Kelvin Hall; the Glasgow Club – Scotland’s largest health and fitness network – including landmarks such as the Emirates Arena and Tollcross International Swimming Centre; the Mitchell Library and 32 Community Libraries, as well as community facilities across the city and a significant learning programme; programming world-class music in venues such as the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, incredible art and exhibitions at Tramway and a number of cultural events, such as Celtic Connections, the Mela, the World Pipe Band Championships and the Merchant City Festival, among others; leading partners in the delivery of Glasgow’s Tourism and Visitor Plan to 2023; positioning the city as a vibrant, first-choice destination for leisure and business tourists; managing the city’s destination marketing and implementing the award-winning PEOPLE MAKE GLASGOW brand; managing Glasgow’s Convention Bureau, which attracts more than 500 conferences to the city each year.

Glasgow Life helped to deliver the 2014 Commonwealth Games, the 2015 World Gymnastics Championships, Davis Cup ties, the 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships and the Total BWF World Badminton Championships 2017. Looking ahead, Glasgow Life is supporting delivery of the inaugural 2018 European Championships – a major multi-sport event in partnership with Berlin – the European Indoor Athletics Championships 2019 and the UEFA Euro 2020 Championship. For more information, visit Glasgow Life.

Creative Scotland is the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries across all parts of Scotland on behalf of everyone who lives, works or visits here. We enable people and organisations to work in and experience the arts, screen and creative industries in Scotland by helping others to develop great ideas and bring them to life. We distribute funding provided by the Scottish Government and the National Lottery. For further information about Creative Scotland please visit

Follow us @creativescots and Facebook.

The BFI is the lead organisation for film in the UK with the ambition to create a flourishing film environment in which innovation, opportunity and creativity can thrive by: connecting audiences to the widest choice of British and World cinema; preserving and restoring the most significant film collection in the world; championing emerging and world class film makers in the UK; promoting British film and talent to the world; growing the next generation of film makers and audiences. www.bfi.org.uk

EventScotland is the national events agency. EventScotland is working to make Scotland one of the world’s leading event destinations. By developing an exciting portfolio of sporting and cultural events EventScotland is helping to raise Scotland’s international profile and boost the economy by attracting more visitors. EventScotland is part of VisitScotland, the national tourism organisation which markets Scotland as a tourism destination across the world, gives support to the tourism industry and brings sustainable tourism growth to Scotland.