BAFTA-winning Glaswegian writer-director Lynne Ramsay will receive the Cinema City Honorary Award at the Glasgow Film Festival.
She will get the honor on March 6 at a special In Conversation event entitled “From Page to Pulse,” which will be hosted by Glasgow filmmaker Adura Onashile (Girl) and be part of the festival’s annual Industry Focus strand. In it, the director will take “a deep dive into her unparalleled approach to adaptation,” organizers said.
The filmmaker made her feature film debut in 1999 with the Glasgow-shot Ratcatcher, which won the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut. “Throughout the last three decades Lynne has become renowned for her distinctive visual style and powerful storytelling, having directed Hollywood titles that include We Need to Talk About Kevin, Die My Love, and You Were Never Really Here,” the festival said.
Launched in 2024, the Cinema City Honorary Award recognizes filmmakers who have made “an outstanding contribution to cinema.” The name of the award stems from the 1930s when Glasgow was home to more cinemas per person than any other place in the U.K. and it became affectionately known as the Cinema City.
Previous recipients of the award are Viggo Mortensen and Glaswegian Hollywood star James McAvoy.
“Lynne Ramsay is one of a very small number of filmmakers who have the seemingly miraculous power of taking a unique vision in their minds and creating it onscreen exactly as they imagined,” said Paul Gallagher, GFF head of program. “Her films have changed our understanding hiiiof what cinema can do and be.”
Added Samantha Bennett, GFF industry manager:“It is a true honor to welcome a homegrown talent of Lynne’s calibre to the Industry Focus program.”
GFF’s 2026 lineup of guest will also include a variety of other stars and filmmakers. McAvoy will attend GFF’s closing gala for the U.K. premiere of hos directorial debut California Schemin’, joined on the red carpet by film cast members Samuel Bottomley, Séamus McLean Ross and Lucy Halliday
Glasgow-based director Felipe Bustos Sierra (Nae Pasaran) will return to the fest for the opening gala of Everybody to Kenmure Street, after the film won an award at Sundance.
Other filmmaking talent attending the festival includes Alice Winocour, Mark Jenkin, Polly Findlay, Marc Evans, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, and Edinburgh filmmaker Sean Dunn for the U.K. premiere of his black comedy The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford.
The 22nd edition of GFF will take place Feb. 25-March 8.