Scottish-made horror-musical-comedy Anna and the Apocalypse is full of youthful, anarchic energy – which makes it a perfect fit for the Glasgow Youth Film Festival, writes Siobhan Synnot
Source: Scottish-set zombie musical Anna and the Apocalypse to open Glasgow Youth Film Festival
Scottish-made horror-musical-comedy Anna and the Apocalypse is full of youthful, anarchic energy – which makes it a perfect fit for the Glasgow Youth Film Festival, writes Siobhan Synnot
Over the last few years the annual Glasgow Youth Film Festival has grown from a curtain raiser to the main Glasgow Film Festival in February to an event in its own right, with its own place in Scottish festival calendar.
This weekend, it runs through the movie gamut from anime to zombies, giving a new generation of passionate cinemagoers and filmmakers the opportunity to see foreign drama, animation and cutting-edge documentaries, as well as attending behind-the-scenes workshops and meeting international movie guests. Many of the film choices are hot off the reels previews, including the Scottish zombie feature Anna and The Apocalypse, which opens the festival ahead of its UK-wide release in November.
Finding a new subspecies to the zombie genre might sound like an impossible ask, but Anna’s gory story is also a Christmas movie and a musical. The tightly-budgeted feature also gives a breakthrough platform to ITV’s Cold Feet ingénue Ella Hunt as schoolgirl Anna, who is forced to learn how to fight, slash, and sing her way through hordes of the undead, including a zombie snowman, in order to help her friends reach their loved ones. The film’s director is Royal Conservatoire of Scotland graduate John McPhail, who will attend the premiere and a cast and crew Q&A afterwards, where he will share stories of shooting a zombie apocalypse in Port Glasgow. “I knew the area, and I know a lot about horror films, being a huge horror fan,” says the filmmaker. However, despite an absurdly catchy score by Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly, McPhail admits that before Anna, movie musicals were as unfamiliar to him as vegetarian zombies. “To be honest I actually thought I hated musicals until I got this job,” says the 33 year-old Glaswegian. “So I bought a pile of them on DVD, sat on the sofa and worked my way through them. I’d never seen West Side Story before, but I loved it, so there’s a bit of West Side in Anna and The Apocalypse. I also went to see Wicked and Legally Blonde on stage, and I really enjoyed both of them as well.”
Continue reading at: https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/film/scottish-set-zombie-musical-anna-and-the-apocalypse-to-open-glasgow-youth-film-festival-1-4799292
