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"He's behind you!" Photo: Andrew Robertson

On the day of the opening Gala for Glasgow's 2025 Short Film Festival anyone venturing into the Glasgow Film Theatre's main auditorium might have been struck by two things. The first was the notion that someone had misplaced the hyphens and invited short film-makers. The second was a Batarang.

Not for the first time, Glasgow doubled for Gotham. In this case the caped crusader was a guest of the city's Bannerman High School, and in traditional bat-manner man-handled the Joker when he attempted to disrupt proceedings. We at Eye For Film are only rarely imperiled by the clown-prince of crime but it's something we prepare for. Armed with little more than my wits and notebook I fearlessly and selflessly sank into my chair and let the Dark Knight shine.

"Why..." you might ask, "were you at risk from the laughingest of the Arkham yo-yos?" and the answer is simple.

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The queue outside Edinburgh's Cameo Cinema for Eiff's screening of Alien: Romulus Photo: Andrew Robertson Alien: Romulus inside the Cameo Photo: Andrew Robertson Opening the Midnight Madness strand at the 77th Edinburgh International Film Festival, Alien: Romulus was introduced by an ebullient Paul Ridd. The festival's director was clad in a tweed three-piece and a tartan tie, a cut from Scotland's cultural cloth. Asking the audience if we were "ready to watch a scary movie" he repeated himself and received a better response.

Thanking Disney for the opportunity to show the film, Ridd led the audience in Cameo theatre one in a rendition of Happy Birthday for Picturehouse supremo Clare Binns. It was a good spirited affair, and the thanks for the xenomorph cosplayer who had terrorised the queue by posing for selfies was echoed with applause.

In his welcoming video message, director Fede Alvarez thanked the film festival...

Matt Lloyd and Sanne Jehoul at the opening of the 2024 Glasgow Short Film Festival Photo: Andrew Robertson

The 2024 Glasgow Short Film Festival opened with a goodbye. Programme director Sanne Jehoul is moving on after a decade with Gsff, and among the usual thanks for sponsors and industry bodies, festival director Matt Lloyd was effusive in his thanks to Sanne.

Fulfilling the usual requirement for a small degree of chaos, the first attempt at the welcome speeches was interrupted by a reel for Blazing Griffin. Their support is vital to Gsff, as Lloyd said "there's no point in pretending this is not a tough time for film production in Scotland," which makes the contributions of bodies like "Scottish Screen" (now actually Screen Scotland) and Glasgow Life all the more valuable. Matt did say that the festival remained surprised by some of the groups willing to help, and did presage a later...

A full Free Movie of the Day is posted on the JoBlo Horror Movies YouTube channel every other day during the week – but on Fridays things get even freakier and a little more fun. Get your weekend started the right way by indulging in Friday Fright Nights! Every Friday, we’ll be taking a look at another genre movie you can watch in its entirety, free of charge, either on the YouTube channel linked above or in the video embed here.

The Friday Fright Night feature we have for you this week is director Andrew Robertson’s suspense thriller American Apocalypse, which takes place after a pandemic that went even worse than the one that shut down the world in 2020. And given that it tells a story set in a wasteland where society has crumbled, this is a film that takes me back to my childhood.

That may seem odd to say,...

Irati

Irati was screened as part of the Frightfest strand at 2023's Glasgow Film Festival. It was originally scheduled for ten to four in the afternoon, but technical difficulties meant it couldn't be shown at that time. Instead, with no small measure of effort behind the scenes, it was shown at eleven o'clock that same evening. Frightfest screenings usually sell out near instantaneously. However porous the borders of horror are, its fans are tightly-knit in their support. That nightmare of exhibition was a happy accident for us at Eye For Film, as it meant that we were able to fit it into our schedule, and, equally luckily, fit ourselves into the cinema.

Alan Jones and Paul Urkijo Alijo in the Glasgow Film Theatre Photo: Andrew Robertson

It was introduced by Frightfest's Alan Jones and the film's director Paul Urkijo Alijo, who were greeted by rapturous applause. There was clear gratitude from Alijo,...

London, April 10 (Ians) Premier League assistant referee Constantine Hatzidakis will not be involved in another game until the end of an investigation over an incident where he appeared to deliberately elbow Liverpool defender Andrew Robertson.

The Professional Game Match Officials Limited (Pgmol), who governs referees in English football, said on Monday it was investigating the bizarre incident at halftime in Sunday’s 2-2 draw between Liverpool and Arsenal.

TV images show that Robertson approached Hatzidakis moments after referee Paul Tierney blew for halftime, only for the official to appear to use his elbow against the left back, who was subsequently shown a yellow card by Tierney, a Xinhua report said.

At the time the Pgmol said it was “aware of an incident involving assistant referee Constantine Hatzidakis and Liverpool defender Andrew Robertson at half-time during the Liverpool vs Arsenal fixture at Anfield,” adding they would “review the matter in full once the game has concluded.

Award winners and jurors at the Glasgow Short Film Festival Photo: Andrew Robertson

Glasgow's 16th Short Film Festival has been an exciting return to form. While last year's saw the return of audiences after coronavirus restrictions were lifted, the festival's Programme Director Sanne Jehoul talked in her opening remarks at the closing ceremony about how this felt like things had properly bounced back. It was "very noticeable" that "people showed back up." Before she and Festival Director Matt Lloyd carried on, however, they announced a bit of off-screen drama.

The festival's had an exciting time. Several judges from the competition had to return early to avoid strike action in the German aviation sector. One of the event venues, the Centre for Contemporary Arts, was picketed by the Iww after staff at the venue's subcontracted/tenanted café were sacked for labour organising. The situation itself is complex, but it's also indicative...

Madrid, March 16 (Ians) Real Madrid booked their place in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday night with a 1-0 win at home to Liverpool, giving them a 6-2 triumph on aggregate.

Karim Benzema scored Madrid’s goal in the 79th minute after the ball fell kindly for him in Liverpool’s penalty area, and his side never looked in danger of surrendering their 5-2 lead from the first leg.

Both sides had chances to score in an entertaining first half but Madrid had the best of them, and were it not for the heroics of Alisson in the Liverpool goal, the tie would have been dead and buried long before Benzema’s goal, a Xinhua report said.

The Brazilian made a spectacular block from Vinicius Jr’s effort as the forward arrived unmarked at the far post to meet a cross from a narrow angle, only for...

Projection equipment through Glasgow film. Musicians from Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Industrial void venue's own. Photo: Andrew Robertson

Many of my favourite film stories are bound up in the cinema experience. There are sensational moments, an ambulance called to someone not just struck but stricken by Titane. Faintings filling in the gap left by the red square in Bryan M Ferguson's Flamingo. There are subtler ones though. Seeing Behaviour as the last film in a programme where the audience had clapped for every one before, feeling those around me grow in dread as they realised they would be obligated by past performance to applaud a film that itself is washed in discomfort. A screening of The Irishman where due to the odd angles of the auditorium and the position of my seat I could not help but see a person checking their watch again and again, more visibly affected by...

Hell Drivers Hell Drivers, 3pm, Talking Pictures TV (Freeview Channel 82), Monday, February 13

Andrew Robertson writes: Tom Yately (Stanley Baker) is an ex-con caught up trying to scrape by. As a trucker in the 1950s his attempts to keep to the straight and narrow are sometimes not the shortest path. There's romance, racism, recklessness. Hell Drivers tells its story with efficient abandon. The cargo may be ballast but it's well balanced. A cast of not-yet-famous faces bring to life a tale of machismo and machinery. Machinations too, in a scheme involving 'getting' and 'quick' but not everyone will be rich. Near everyone involved would go on to higher heights. Unlike many shared early works this holds up well. It may at times look clumsy to modern viewers but this is robust film-making. Six decades and change have not slowed its pace, nor dulled its anger. Sorry We Missed You covers similar ground.

Back To The Future vs Knight Rider Scalextric set Photo: Andrew Robertson

I was upstairs reading and don't recall hearing the doorbell. I do remember being startled to hear my mother and sister yelling and screaming. They'd opened the parcel. My first Scalextric set was 1989's Formula 1 Set Silverstone. I say 'my', it was won in a competition entered by one of my sisters with a drawing I had helped with. I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is for giveaways in defunct children's magazines but it's hopefully shorter than those for stealing plutonium from international terrorists or any of the crimes the Knight Foundation investigated. The surprise that day (both theirs and mine) was because the first notification that we'd been won a prize was its arrival. It was ours, it was massive, and it was great.

Scalextric still is.

The full layout, without trailing wires to get...

As YouTube took its first step onto turf long controlled by television — upfronts week in New York — the Google-owned video operation released new research affirming its connection with viewers.

The new study conducted with the firm Talk Shoppe was summed up with the acronym Rise, short for relevance, intellectual, sensorial and emotional. It found that 86 of survey respondents said YouTube delivered relevant and intellectual programming, compared with results in the 73 to 79 range for other platforms. In terms of emotion, the number was 84, edging social media at 80. The lone category where YouTube did not come out No. 1 was in sensorial — aka the way programming looks and sounds — where it rated 72 and trailed streaming’s 76.

The study, commissioned by YouTube parent Google, surveyed 2,000 respondents aged 18-64 in the U.S. from January 11 to 21.

The stats were delivered as part of a breakfast hosted at the St. Regis Hotel. Tara Wolpert-Levy, VP of the Americas for YouTube,...

The Glasgow Short Film Festival 2022 awards ceremony Photo: Andrew Robertson

The 15th Glasgow Short Film Festival returned to what I almost automatically attempted to describe as "live action" when I mean in fact "in person". The festival operated in a hybrid model, many of the programmes were available online though some workshops were streamed as well as the films in the main competitions.

Eye For Film attended the opening gala, the astonishing The Timekeepers Of Eternity at Glasgow's Film Theatre. The Gft was one of the many bodies thanked in the various speeches of the evening, and Aristotelis Maragkos the film's director served on one of the juries.

He was joined on the Scotland's Year Of Stories Short Film Award jury by Hannah Laveri and Ren Scateni. Scateni was the only jury member present as her colleagues were among many of the film-makers that circumstances and indeed other ceremonies had called them away.

The launch of the Glasgow Short Film Festival 2022 Photo: Andrew Robertson

It felt more than a little odd to be in Glasgow's Film Theatre for the opening gale of the fifteenth Glasgow Short Film Festival. Not just because the opening film wasn't a short, coming in over an hour, but also because, you know, everything.

Gsff was once a part of Gff, became an independent festival and then an independent entity, was one of the first to run online only, is now indulging in a degree of hybridity that means most of this festival's coverage will be from my sofa. They've continued the impeccable timing that means I'll be leaving its awards ceremony (probably in person) to provide live reaction (remotely) for the Academy Awards. They've also, and this is important, continued to push films of quality to the forefront in a way that is emboldened by their focus on...

With FIFA 21 set to make its debut next week, there’s much to unravel about the game before fans step onto the pitch. With traditional EA Sports norms being slightly altered because of the Covid-19 pandemic, some announcements and reveals have come with a little more flare than usual.

For example, EA traditionally celebrates its Top 100 rated players in the upcoming installment by releasing the ratings of 20 players at a time, starting at #100 and working its way down. However, this year the publisher has decided to announce the Top 1,000 players all at once to give fans from all over the globe a glimpse of how their favorite players will fare in the newest installment of the soccer series.

The Top 1,000 for FIFA 21 were decided by what EA has dubbed as the Ratings Collective, “a talent scouting network with a passion for The World’s Game. From spring speed to finishing,...

I Am Not A Witch I Am Not A Witch, Film4 on demand until August 20

This assured feature debut from Welsh-Zambian director Rungano Nyoni skewers sexual politics as it tells the tale of a young Zambian girl, Shula (Maggie Mulubwa), who finds herself accused of being a witch. Packed off to a witch camp, she is forced to work, tethered alongside her fellow "witches" by gigantic cotton bobbins, which add an edge of the surreal to Nyoni's tale. Her self-declared state guardian Mr Banda (Henry Pj Phiri) embodies the ludicrous elements of the patriarchy as well as the danger, as he brags to the women about how much longer their tethers are since he took office. There are plenty of laughs here but also poignancy as Nyoni slowly tightens the focus on Shula's plight. Read the full review here.

Heal The Living, Film4 on demand until August 19

Andrew Robertson writes: Adaptations of novels gain strength.

Award winners and jurors at the Glasgow Short film Festival Photo: Andrew Robertson

The Glasgow Short Film Festival's awards ceremony was a good humoured affair - helped by the comedy stylings of Indie Cork's Ronan Leonard who was this year hosting slightly more on purpose. After the usual litany of thanks including the roll of honoured volunteers and returning sponsors Merchant City Brewing, it was on to the awards. Biggar Gin (the other drinks sponsor) provided part of the prizes, but I must confess I did not hear a single joke about the bottles - perhaps they were just the right size.

Civic House was again festival hub, and apart from a bit of bitterness about a collapsed ceiling they've been a popular venue - I'm not sure if it was they or Cca's Saramago café responsible for...

Adcolor, the premier organization dedicated to celebrating and promoting professionals of color and diversity in the creative industries, is heading to Los Angeles to hold their 12th annual awards show and conference at the J.W. Marriott Los Angeles L.A. Live Hotel from September 21st through 23rd.

The sold-out event will attract notable celebrities, including The Real’s Jeannie Mai, award-winning journalist Soledad O'Brien, Founder of the #MeToo Movement Tarana Burke, HuffPost Editor in Chief Lydia Polgreen, Star Trek: Discovery’s Wilson Cruz, music video director Paul Hunter, screenwriter and producerMara Brock Akil, and personalities Luvvie Ajayi and Joe Budden.

Corporate leaders attending the event include Proctor and Gamble’s Marc Pritchard, Endeavor’s Bozoma Saint John, Wieden+Kennedy’s Colleen DeCourcy, Sc Johnson’s Ann Mukherjee, The Geena Davis Institute’s Madeline Di Nonno, Bbdo’s Andrew Robertson, GLAAD’s Sarah Kate Ellis and Unilever’s Esi Eggleston Bracey,...