Adura Onashile’s Glasgow-shot feature Girl To Open Glasgow Film Festival

It’s a new year that means it’s film festival season again. Today Glasgow Film Festival has announced it’s opening Gala which will be Adura Onashile’s Glasgow-shot debut feature Girl.

The film will make it’s UK Premiere  at Glasgow  with the World premiere happening at Sundance later this month.

Grace (Déborah Lukumuena) and her 11 year-old daughter Ama (Le’Shantey Bonsu) are trying to build a new life in Glasgow, a city where everything feels strange and hostile. Traumatised by her past, Grace just wants to keep her daughter safe from harm. Ama is told to trust nobody. When Ama makes friends with a classmate, it only adds to Grace’s anxiety and fear that their special bond is under threat.

This atmospheric and poignant tale of what it takes to escape the legacy of violence and trust in the future marks Glasgow-based writer-director Onashile as an exciting new voice in Scottish cinema. Girl is a barry crerar production, supported in production by the BFI (awarding National Lottery funding), BBC Film and Screen Scotland, in association with Great Point Media.

“I am delighted and honoured that we will open Glasgow Film Festival with Adura Onashile’s Girl, a powerful and poignant feature debut set in Glasgow”. said Allison Gardner the festival’s co-director. “I’m also very proud of the Glasgow Film Festival team who have put together a brilliant and inspiring programme of events for the Industry Focus. Whilst I always knew that Glasgow Film Festival was the place to see great films, now it is also the place for Industry professionals to come and listen, participate and network with their peers”.

Today, the festival has also announced the first names and events at its annual Industry Focus. That first name will be Lauren Castro, Senior Director of Adult Animation for the MTV Entertainment Group at Paramount. Castro oversees the development of adult animated projects for Paramount + and Comedy Central.  The panel will be hosted by film critic and author Hanna Ines Flint.

Industry Delegates will have the opportunity to receive pitch training from the co-founders of My SMASH Media,  Fiona Gillies and Christine Hartland, who are both producers. Successful applicants to the training will then have the opportunity to pitch their film or TV project to a panel of industry experts at the festival. This includes  Film4 development and production executive Alice Whittemore. The training will take place on International Women’s Day, Wednesday 8th March, with the live pitching event taking place the following day.

We will be attending the Glasgow Film Festival this year, with 19th edition running from 1st until 12th March. The full programme will be launched later this month and we’ll bring you those details when we get them.

Tickets to Girl will go on sale at noon on Monday 16 January at glasgowfilm.org.