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Whisper it, but Scotland’s two major film festivals appear to be in reasonably good health.

Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) opened on February 26 with John Maclean’s new film Tornado, and sold its last tub of popcorn on March 9 when Martyn Robertson’s documentary Make It To Munich closed the event. Both films were world premieres and, for the first time in GFF history, both opening and closing features were directed by Scots.

There was a heavy hitter in the form of Edinburgh-based director Laura Carreira’s debut feature, On Falling, and heavy hitters of the two-legged red carpet variety in the form of Jessica Lange, Ed Harris, Tim Roth, Martin Compston, James McAvoy and Toni Collette (who wasn’t even supposed to be coming).

The statistics ninjas at GFF have now published this year’s numbers. Though with 33,000 attendances the overall audience figures are down slightly on last year, it’s notable that there has been a 15% increase in the number of delegates – up to nearly 750. Interestingly, the 2024 figure which this bests was already up 56% on the previous year.

These details matter because it’s what goes on around the fringes of film festivals – the meetings, both contrived and random, between aspiring film-makers, writers, producers, programmers etc. – which puts them on the industry map as much as glitzy premieres do. It helped that this year there was a dedicated delegate venue, the Social Hub, where the networking could happen. Meanwhile, the Industry Focus 2025........

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