Xavier Legrand’s CUSTODY Wins the 14th Annual GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Audience Award as GFF Celebrates Record-Breaking Year

Admissions across the first seven days up 9% on 2017 festival

Festival remained operational during extreme weather conditions to finish with sell-out World Premieres of Scottish-made features Super November and Nae Pasaran

Winner of GFF18 Audience Award announced as Xavier Legrand’s nail-biting drama Custody

The fourteenth annual Glasgow Film Festival finished on a high this weekend as it celebrated record-breaking attendance and a bumper crop of World Premieres made in Scotland.

Its opening weekend saw top talent such as Karen Gillan, David Tennant, Lynne Ramsay and Imogen Poots grace the GFF red carpet as admissions across the opening seven days were up 9% on 2017. On Saturday 24 February, Glasgow Film Theatre enjoyed 2,276 admissions, a new single day record for the venue outside FrightFest.

The festival team worked tirelessly to ensure that GFF18 remained operational during the Beast From The East storm and ended with a weekend of high-profile guests including Gemma Arterton and Ben Wheatley and sell-out screenings, including the return of the ever-popular FrightFest and the World Premiere of Douglas King’s Glasgow-set dystopian rom-com Super November.

Home-grown talent continued to shine as the festival closed tonight with the Gala World Premiere of Felipe Bustos Sierra’s rousing documentary Nae Pasaran. The Scottish-made feature tells the incredible true story of the East Kilbride factory workers who defied a dictatorship from the other side of the world by grounding half of Pinochet’s air-force in the 1970s.

The workers themselves – Bob Fulton, Stuart Barrie, John Keenan and Robert Somerville – were all in attendance at the World Premiere along with Felipe. At the closing gala, Xavier Legrand’s compellingly tense Custody was named the winner of the GFF18 Audience Award – voted for by GFF audiences out of a shortlist of ten festival films by first and second-time directors. Custody will be released in cinemas across the UK from 13 April by Picturehouse Entertainment.

Glasgow Film Festival will be keeping the festival magic alive as GFF18 on Tour brings four of its most popular films to cinemas across Scotland later in the year: Nae Pasaran, the crowd-pleasing The Divine Order, Maggie Smith in Muriel Spark’s classic The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Brimstone & Glory, the stunning documentary about Mexico’s jaw-dropping National Pyrotechnics Festival.

The dates for Glasgow Film Festival 2019 have been confirmed as Wednesday 20 February to Sunday 3 March.

Xavier Legrand, director of the GFF18 Audience Award Winning Custody said "It is a great honour to win this award and my thanks go to the festival and its wonderful audiences for it. The festival has a great spirit and sense of community especially in the face of this week's weather events and myself and the film's star Denis Menochet hope to revisit again in the coming years, with or without the snow!"

David Tennant, who attended Glasgow Film Festival 2018 with the European Premiere of You, Me and Him said “I am so pleased and proud that we got to premiere You, Me and Him at the GFF. In the GFT, possibly my favourite cinema in the world. The Glasgow audience is so engaged and enthusiastic and discerning, it’s the perfect place to celebrate all that is exciting about British film. Thanks for having us!”

Allison Gardner, Glasgow Film Festival Co-director said "We have had the most wonderful time at GFF18, from our stunning stop animation Opening with the UK Premiere of Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs through to our closing weekend featuring two World Premieres of Scottish films - Super November and Nae Pasaran. Despite the best efforts of the Beast from the East, our fantastic team here pulled together and achieved the herculean task of ‘the show must go on’. Before the storm GFF18 was 9% ahead of GFF17"

Allan Hunter, Glasgow Film Festival Co-director said "I am thrilled that Custody has won the 2O18 Glasgow Film Festival Audience Award. Xavier Legrand's stunning debut feature had audiences on the edge of their seats as he explored the fallout from a bitter custody battle. Brilliant performances and Legrand's impeccable control of the escalating tension made Custody unforgettable. We hope the award is a sign of great things to come for Custody's UK release via Picturehouse."