Glasgow Film Festival ‘Coming Of Age’ For 2025 Festival

You all know we love the Glasgow Film Festival (GFF), it’s our local film festival. Today has announced the first films from its 21st edition, they will be ‘Coming of age’.

The 2025 festival which is set to take place 26th February to 9th March 2025. The film unveiled today will be part of its popular and highly-anticipated retrospective strand. 10 free screenings which give audiences the chance to watch back catalogue classics on the big screen.

The theme for the festival’s retrospective will be ‘Our Time is Now: Coming of Age in the Movies’. Exploring everything from first love to sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, the titles include Elia Kazan’s classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) about the tumultuous life of a family in 1900 Brooklyn, told through the eyes of a teenager. A young man’s journey with his family in search of a better life in Indian masterpiece Pather Panchali (1955), which follows a young man’s journey with his family in search of a better life; and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), starring the late Dame Maggie Smith as an eccentric and liberated school teacher whose ideas of life and love have an influence on her students.

Classic Scottish coming-of-age  Gregory’s Girl (1981), exposing all the awkwardness and joy of first love. Amy Heckerling‘s cult Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) brings together a youthful Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage and Jennifer Jason Leigh as rebellious high schoolers. Guns, drugs and the violence is part of everyday life in Boyz N the Hood (1991), about a group of teenagers growing up in South Central LA. a snapshot of working class England in the early Thatcher years can be seen in Shane Meadows groundbreaking drama This is England.

Glasgow Film Festival favourite Turkish drama Mustang (2015), follows five sisters living under their family’s strict rules. Julia Durcournau’s debut body horror Raw (2016), a very disturbing take on growing up; and lastly, Greta Gerwig’s iconic creation, Lady Bird (2017) starring Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet.

Tickets for the free retrospective screenings can be collected from Glasgow Film Theatre’s Box Office on the morning of each screening, which take place at 10.30am during the festival. If you know this strand it will sell out quickly everyday.

Festival director  Alison Gardner commented “This year’s retrospective films cover the highs and lows of being a young adult, and all the experiences that go with coming-of-age. As well as classic Scottish titles, Gregory’s Girl and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, there’s drama, comedy, crime and horror in the collection of films. The retrospective screenings are an essential part of Glasgow Film Festival as they offer all audiences, no matter their circumstances, the chance to watch films for free, and to see films as they are best enjoyed: on a big screen with fellow film fans around you.”

The 2025 Glasgow Film Festival will take place between 26th February and 9th March 2025.The full  programme will be announced on Tuesday 21st January and we’ll bring you the details when we get them.