Glasgow Film Festival 2026 - James McAvoy will attend Closing Gala

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Glasgow Film Festival 2026 – James McAvoy will attend Closing Gala

Homegrown superstar James McAvoy will attend GFF’s closing gala for the UK premiere of directorial debut, California Schemin’ on 8 March.

McAvoy will be joined on the red carpet by film cast Samuel Bottomley, Séamus McLean Ross and Lucy Halliday

Glasgow-based director Felipe Bustos Sierra (Nae Pasaran) will return to GFF for the opening gala of Everybody to Kenmure Street, after the film won a documentary award at Sundance

Other award-winning filmmaking talent attending the festival includes Alice Wincour with the UK premiere of Couture, Marc Jenkin with the Scottish premiere of Rose of Nevada, Polly Findlay with the UK premiere of Glasgow-set Midwinter Break, Marc Evans with the World premiere of Welsh drama Effi o Blaenau,

Effi o Blaenau Met Film Studio

Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard with the Scottish premiere of Broken English

Scottish talent includes 22 year old identical twin filmmakers Ben and Nathan McQuaid with the World premiere of their Glasgow alien invasion movie Welcome To G Town and Edinburgh filmmaker Sean Dunn with the UK premiere of his Scottish black comedy The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford

california schemin Tiff25 credit Mark Mainz

Homegrown Hollywood star James McAvoy will tread the Glasgow Film Festival red carpet at the UK premiere of his directorial debut, California Schemin’ (8 March). He will be joined by cast members Samuel Bottomley (How to Have Sex), Scottish star of Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Séamus McLean Ross and Paisley-born BAFTA Scotland Award-winning Lucy Halliday (Blue Jean). Watch the trailer.

Scotland-based Chilean-Belgian film director Felipe Bustos Sierra (Nae Pasaran), will return to GFF for the UK premiere of Everybody to Kenmure Street, the festival’s opening gala film on 25 February. This comes after the title was awarded the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Civil Resistance at the Sundance Film Festival. Also attending the premiere will be Glasgow-based political activist and human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar and Glasgow Councillor Roza Salih, who co-founded the Glasgow Girls in 2005 at the age of 15.

everybody to kenmure st

A selection of hot new talent and ground-breaking filmmakers will also appear on the red carpet at the 22nd edition of GFF, taking place between 25 February and 8 March.

Scottish talent to tread the red carpet includes 22-year-old identical twins from Bothwell, Ben McQuaid and Nathan McQuaid, who will attend the world premiere of their directorial debut, Welcome to G-Town (28 February). The micro-budget horror film, shot on location in Glasgow and poised to be an audience favourite at the festival, has had a third screening added to the GFF26 programme, after the first two screenings quickly sold out. Edinburgh filmmaker Sean Dunn will also attend the UK premiere of his Edinburgh-filmed black comedy The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford (4 March).

Sailm nan Daoine (Psalms of the People) – main still – Rob Harmonium-3 (c) Hopscotch Films

Glasgow-based Jack Archer, director of Gaelic-language documentary Sailm nan Daoine (Psalms of the People), will attend, as well as the film’s subject, precentor Rob MacNeacail (1 March). The UK premiere of Midwinter Break, based on Glasgow-based novelist Bernard MacLaverty’s book of the same name, will see the writer grace the red carpet, as well as the film’s director, Olivier Award-winner Polly Findlay (26 February).

Other British filmmakers attending include Ed Sayers, director of environmental feature Super Nature (28 February), BAFTA-winning Mark Jenkin (Bait), who will return to GFF for the Scottish premiere of his hotly anticipated science fiction drama Rose of Nevada (26 February), BAFTA-winning Stroma Cairns (Mood) for the Scottish premiere of The Son and the Sea (7 March), and BIFA-winning directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, who will return to GFF for the Scottish premiere of Broken English, about British pop icon Marianne Faithfull (26 February).

Broken English

Filmmakers from across the world will attend, including French screenwriter and director Alice Winocour (Proxima) for the UK premiere of Angelina Jolie-led drama Couture, which will also be attended by co-writer, Swiss filmmaker Jean-Stéphane Bron (28 February). NME Award-winning Irish filmmaker Gavin FitzGerald will attend the UK premiere of Lomu, his new documentary about rugby icon Jonah Lomu and Italian director Francesco Sossai will attend the UK premiere of GFF26 Audience Award shortlisted film The Last One for the Road (5 March), as well as the directors of Leonora in the Morning Light, Swiss/Czech filmmaker Lena Vurma and German filmmaker Thor Klein (28 February).

Gavin FitzGerald, Irish director of Lomu about legendary rugby player Jonah Lomu, will attend (27 February), as well as Mexico City-based Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig, directors of Jaripeo, about the queer side of Mexican rodeo (1 March). Japanese filmmaker Yukinori Makabe will also return to the festival for the world premiere of his romance drama Sinsin and the Mouse, adapted from celebrated author Banana Yoshimoto’s short story of the same name (6 March).

Acting talent who will grace the GFF red carpet include Call the Midwife star Natalie Quarry and Eastenders actor Ronni Ancona for the UK premiere of Think of England (6 March), 16-year-old BAFTA-nominated rising star Woody Norman (C’mon C’mon) for the UK premiere of My Father’s Island (2 March), and up-and-coming actor Leisa Gwenllian, lead of Effi o Blaenau, a Welsh drama having its world premiere at the festival, as well as a return to GFF by the film’s director, BAFTA Cymru-winning Marc Evans (3 March).

Foreign Bodies Lysander Wong

FrightFest, the horror festival known as the UK’s “Woodstock of gore”, taking place within GFF, will also see a selection of stars gracing Glasgow Film Theatre, with the UK premiere of The Restoration at Grayson Manor being attended by previously announced stars Chris Colfer (Glee) and Alice Krige (Star Trek) (6 March), and Red Riding being attended by acclaimed horror director and producer Neil Marshall (The Descent) (7 March).

GFF26 will host 126 films across 12 days, including 16 World, European and International premieres, 68 UK premieres, and 18 Scottish premieres, with titles from 44 countries and six continents.

GFF is Scotland’s flagship film festival and is run by Glasgow Film, a charity which also runs Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT). The festival is made possible by support from Screen Scotland and the BFI Audience Projects Fund, both awarding National Lottery funding, and Glasgow Life, the charity which delivers culture, events and active living in Glasgow.