The Glasgow Film Festival, one of the most exciting film festivals in the country, kicked off last night. Until March 1st, the city will play host to some of the most anticipated new films of 2015 including those made by acclaimed directors, A-list actors and the hottest names in world cinema.
Here are ten films you should look out for at the film festival:
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While We’re Young
Director Noah Baumbach created one of the decade's best comedies with Frances Ha. This year, the filmmaker, who has regularly worked alongside Oscar nominee Wes Anderson, reunites with the star of his earlier film Greenberg, Ben Stiller, for While We're Young. Opening the festival on the back of glowing reviews from the Toronto Film Festival, this is set to be an absolute must-see.
Radiator
A prime example of British independent cinema, Radiator was shot on a shoe-string budget at its director Tom Browne's house in the Lake District. Based on the warm reaction of its premiere at last year's London Film Festival, the financial limitations have not prevented the film from being a heartfelt and humorous story of looking after an aging family member. The film's honesty is certainly helped by the fact Browne based the tale on personal experience.
Girlhood - Photo from Strand Releasing
Girlhood
With Boyhood primed to sweep the Academy Awards on Sunday night, recognised as the best film of last year, it is somewhat ironic that one of this year's best films is Girlhood. It may not be shot over 12 years, but it is no less remarkable - a French coming-of-age drama about a poor black teenager swept into the allure of a girl gang. Look out for the terrific scene in which the girls lip-sync to Rihanna's song Diamonds in full.
White Bird In A Blizzard
A remarkable twist on the mystery genre, White Bird In A Blizzard, adapted from the novel by Laura Kasischke, is not as interested in the enigma of a missing mother's whereabouts as it is exploring why she may have disappeared. It's a provocative account of a mother coming to terms with adulthood amid her own daughter's coming-of-age. Eva Green and Shailene Woodley star.
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is the black-and-white Iranian feminist vampire movie you never knew you needed in your life, but you do. A brilliant mix of influences from horror movies to graphic novels help to bring writer and director Ana Lily Amirpour's debut movie to life. It is a true original that, with a little luck, could become a cult classic.
Still Alice - Photo by Denis Lenoir, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Still Alice
If anyone other than Julianne Moore walks away with the Best Actress award at Sunday night's Oscars it will be a shock. Glaswegian film buffs can see what all the fuss is about before everyone else in the UK as Still Alice will be showing at the festival. The movie sees Moore play a Columbia University professor diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. She appears alongside Kristen Stewart and Alec Baldwin.
Rosewater
John Stewart, one of America's smartest political satarists, has recently announced that he will be leaving his post on The Daily Show after a triumphant sixteen years. While the show will be an immense part of his legacy, Stewart is a man of many other talents - including film writing and directing. His debut movie Rosewater, starring Gael Garcia Bernal as a real-life journalist detained by Iranian forces, is a tough but essential story of courage.
Clouds Of Sils Maria
Determined to prove her naysayers wrong, Kristen Stewart gives a staggering performance in Clouds Of Sils Maria that had critics at last year's Cannes Film Festival in awe. She may be supporting actress to Juliette Binoche, who takes the lead role of an actress performing a play that launched her career two decades ago, but Stewart is the real star here - no mean feat, as anyone who's seen a Binoche film will surely tell you.
It Follows - Photo from Mongrel Media
It Follows
Is It Follows the best horror film of the decade so far? The Cabin In The Woods and The Babadook might have something to say about that, but the suspenseful and spooky chiller is certainly worthy of that title. A metaphor for teenage sex, it's about a young girl plagued by the sense that something is coming for her after a bizarre sexual encounter. It is a smart and original take on the genre.
The Falling
Carol Morley's documentary Dreams Of A Life received a lot of attention when it played on Channel 4 in 2013. Those who saw it will surely remember its tragic, frightening tale of a popular woman whose body wasn't discovered for several years after she died. Her follow up is a drama starring Game Of Thrones' Maisie Williams about two teenagers at an all-girls school in 1969.