This year’s Glasgow Film Festival’s Industry Focus strand looks set to build upon its last year’s banner edition, which saw a 15% uptick in attendance. An extra day has been added to the event this year, which will see it expand from four to five days. The strand runs March 2-6, 2026.
For GFF Industry Manager Samantha Bennett, it’s a sign that things are moving in the right direction. Bennett and her team have been steadily working to position the strand into a must-attend event on the European festival calendar that can attract delegates from the UK and beyond whilst also creating a pipeline to support new local talent.
Keynote speakers this year include renowned Glaswegian writer-director Lynne Ramsay, who will lead an In Conversation event during the strand, while Melissa Hardinge, Senior Commissioning Editor for BBC Children’s 7 to 12, will give an opening address. Filmmaker and script consultant David Pope and former Curzon CEO Phillip Knatchbull and Curzon Head of Development Kristian Brodie will also be in attendance alongside execs from Bankside, The Match Factory, Ashland Hill Media Finance and more.
Deadline sat down with Bennett in advance of this year’s event to get the low-down on what 2026’s edition has to offer.
DEADLINE: You’ve added an extra day to the Industry Focus strand this year. Why is this?
SAMANTHA BENNETT: We noticed how busy we were last year, not just from delegate numbers, but also the events themselves from networking to even the smaller panels. It just felt like every event really matched the things that delegates wanted to hear about, the people they wanted to hear from and the people they wanted to meet. Our live pitches were packed, and we were turning people away. Due to that demand, we realized that we need to grow with that demand. So, adding that additional day made sense.
DEADLINE: How would you describe the programming for Industry Focus this year? What have you added that you didn’t have last year?
BENNETT: The biggest thing we introduced this year is our Made In Glasgow day, which is something I have wanted to do for a while. We celebrate the organizations and the people living and working in Glasgow – the distributors, the production companies and the animation studios that are based here. We want to move away from talking about Glasgow as an underdog in the screen sector and more of a place where international productions want to come. Our post-production houses, our VFX houses, are all able to compete for international work because of the skills and the talents of people that are based here. So, it just felt like the right moment to launch that.
Another new strand is our Meet The Decision Makers strand. In the past, we’ve had to be quite broad with this and talk about distribution, sales and exhibition all in one go, whereas now we’re having separate strands for each such as Meet The Distributors, Meet The Sales Agents, Meet The Financiers and Meet The Talent Agents. So, we can really get into the specifics and the nitty gritty in each of those areas.
Our live pitches are back but they’re bigger and we have more talent this year. We’ve got 51 filmmakers, which considering we only had eight three years ago, is quite a big jump. We’ve got 25 projects going through our labs, 15 of which are feature films, which is incredible. Again, three years ago, we weren’t developing any projects as we weren’t working in that space. So, I think the ambition of us to be this talent development festival is becoming more and more obvious with the growth in those talent labs.
This year we have our first ever official international delegations. We’ve had people attend in the past from different countries around the world, but this year, we’ve formalized that. We’re working with France, who are going to be having an official delegation, and Austria, which will have and having an official delegation, which is really exciting. We’ve got filmmakers and producers from the CNC and Austrian Film Institute who are coming over here and I think this is going to be great for encouraging co-productions across these regions. Making that more of a long-term partnership is a goal.
DEADLINE: Attendance last year was up 15% year-on-year. Do you have any indication of what this year’s attendance might look like given you have an extra day?
BENNETT: It’s obviously hard to predict, but I think what I’ve been looking at ticket sales and industry pass sales, it’s been consistent the whole time. I would anticipate another 15% increase. I think we will easily hit over 800 delegates this year.
We have always looked to build this event sustainably and grow into our venues. I think next year we can definitely look to a bigger venue so that we can be more aggressive with our outreach. We don’t want to over commit to how many people we can have but we also realize that we can be quite a bit more ambitious as we get better and that’s so exciting.
DEADLINE: A big directive for you is to support local talent. How do you support that pipeline you are building throughout the year outside of the event?
BENNETT: From a talent perspective, we build really close relationships with our filmmakers. We are constantly talking to them, and my team is incredible about making sure that not only are we helping them in their creative development and their professional development but also making sure that we’re someone they can speak to when they’re struggling. Filmmaking is quite a tough gig. A big motto for us is that everyone that joins a talent lab at GFF across the years, once the lab ends, your relationship with GFF has not.
We continue to help filmmakers with funding applications and applications to other schemes. We review their films, their short films or edits. We also host networking events throughout the year with everyone who’s ever been on a lab and that helps bridge the gap between the years and makes sure that there’s a peer network. I think that’s really important. We are lucky that people who take our partner labs do have a big trust in us and want to keep the relationship up. Our plan for the future is to try and formalize that alumni network.
DEADLINE: How do you envision Industry Focus growing across the coming years?
BENNETT: We don’t want to be a Cannes or a Berlin – that’s not the goal at all. But we do want to be recognized as a talent development festival, not just in the UK, but in Europe. We want to be the place that the international sector comes to find emerging talent, new projects, and exciting feature films.
Also, we’d like to look more at co-development and co-production and formalizing that with the international delegations that come over to our events. I think that would be the ultimate goal.
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