Glasgow Film Theatre
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The Glasgow Film Theatre or GFT is an independent, specialist cinema in Rose Street, (by Sauchiehall Street), Glasgow.
The theatre is situated in a listed modernist European building with a post art deco interior. The building's design was by Glaswegian architects James McKissack and W J Anderson, and was influenced by the Dutch Modernist architect by Willem Marinus Dudok.
The GFT's predecessor, the Cosmo, opened with 850 seats in the same building in 1934, and was Scotland's first (and the UK's second, after the Curzon, Mayfair) ever arts cinema. It was opened on 18th May 1939 by brothers George and Vincent Singleton, of Glasgow's famous cinema-chain family. The opening screening was of Julien Duvivier’s Un Carnet de Bal (1937), and European cinema was central to its programming. In 1953, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was broadcast live - the first television performance in a Glasgow cinema.
In May 1974, the Scottish Film Council purchased the Cosmo and reopened it as the Glasgow Film Theatre. The opening was Federico Fellini’s film Roma (1972). In 1986 the GFT became an independent charity, and in 1988, benefited from a second cinema opening in time for Glasgow's year as European City of Culture (1990).
The GFT plays an important part in the cultural life of the city, showing a wide variety (around 450 per year) of international video and television productions in addition to arthouse, documentary and mainstream films.
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