Icelandic football filmThe Home Game won the Glasgow Film Festival audience award which was presented as the 20th edition drew to a close in the Scottish city last night (March 10).
Smari Gunn and Logi Sigursveinsson’s documentary about plucky underdogs Reynir FC’s bid for cup glory scored the highest audience score in the award’s 10-year history.
Based in the Icelandic village of Hellissandur, with a population of 369, Reynir FC was re-formed in 2020 with a ragtag bunch of locals including a 15-year-old schoolboy rapper, 40-something in goal and the somewhat controversial inclusion of a former Iceland women’s team player.
“Being a small film from Iceland, it means so much for us to get this recognition and the opportunity to share the story of these loveable Icelandic villagers, as far and wide as possible,” said the directors of their win.
The Home Game is produced by Silver Screen, with the UK’s Met Film repping international sales.
The shortlist of eight first and second-time directors in the running for the audience award also included Viggo Mortensen’s The Dead Don’t Hurt. Earlier in the festival, Danish director and actor Mortensen was presented with the festival’s inaugural Cinema City Honorary Award, and delighted local crowds at the UK premiere of The Dead Don’t Hurt by revealing in a Q&A he has Scottish heritage and that the Glasgow premiere was “the best place I’ve seen my movie and the best place I’ve heard it”.
Other buzzy films at the festival included Ciaran Lyons’ low-budget dark comedy Tummy Monster (an extra screening had to be added to meet ravenous audience demand); Milena Aboyan’s Elaha, set among a Kurdish community in Germany; and Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding, which opened the festival after playing at Sundance and Berlin.
”We’re ahead in admissions and our Industry Focus was very successful,” said GFF director Allison Gardner of this year’s edition. She noted the ”breadth and range of films has been received well both critically and publicly” with a highlight being ”the brilliant reaction to our opening gala Love Lies Bleeding”.
”This year we had an increase in submitted films and more filmmakers want to launch their films at GFF,” Gardner observed. ”Like many organisations funding is always a challenge, but all of these challenges are also opportunities.”
“We want to be at the level of Sundance”
Although the 20th edition, it was a year of fresh starts for the festival: Gardner’s first without co-director Allan Hunter; the inaugural festival ceilidh; the debut outing of GFF’s animation talent development scheme Animatic Live Pitch; and the launch of a 10-year industry strategy, led by an advisory board, chaired by film and TV director Raisah Ahmed, with support from the likes of Film4’s Alice Whittemore and Protagonist’s George Hamilton.
“It’s our time to take the next step, to move forward,” said Gardner of the revised industry strategy.
The 10-year industry strategy’s aims include establishing Glasgow as the UK’s leading festival for talent development; remaining open and inclusive; and contributing to Scotland’s global reputation.
“My personal aim is for our industry programme, in 10 years’ time, to be at the level of Sundance,” said Ahmed. “We want to be a festival the international film community want to attend.”
One such international filmmaker at the festival was Germany’s Aylin Tezel, an actor whose directorial debut Falling Into Place is a UK-German co-production, shot in Scotland, that had its UK premiere at GFF. “Watching the film for the first time with a Scottish audience was great and I was really happy how warmly the film and we as cast and creators were welcomed,” she said.
She also flagged the importance of festivals such as GFF for being a meeting ground for international co-productions. “There’s so much to gain in pairing up people from all over the world who can create a network and support each other in the challenging process of making films.”
Packed-out industry events at the industry’s new venue, former church Adelaide Place, included the launch of Screen Scotland’s six-year strategy and a celebration of the UK’s next generation of filmmaking talent in conversation with BFI Filmmaking Fund director Mia Bays and BBC Film director Eva Yates.
A major talking point on the ground was the news of the enhanced tax incentive for lower-budget films, which was announced midway through the festival. GFF is a keen champion of emerging talent working in the lower-budget space, with 43% of titles this year from first or second-time directors.
“It’s incredibly necessary,” said Bays at a GFF BFI Filmmaking Fund networking event. “This will be a gamechanger for everything that is coming up, and hopefully will bring a lot more funders into the industry, which we desperately need.”
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