The Tab Tries: GU Film-making society film premiere

There are few university experiences quite as glamorous as putting on your mother’s vintage velvet dress, drinking the Oran Mor bar dry and spending the evening surrounded by actors, directors and filmmakers.

Okay, perhaps I am being slightly generous with the word glamorous.

But for one night in May, the University of Glasgow Filmmaking Society‘s bi-annual premiere certainly felt like Hollywood had packed up its red carpet and relocated to Byres Road.

There were pretty fairy lights. There were black-tie outfits. There were beautiful dresses and an objectively unnecessary number of handsome men in suits.

And, most importantly, there were films.

The premiere was the culmination of months of work from the society’s filmmakers, actors and crew, bringing together the people responsible for creating the productions and giving them the chance to see their work screened in front of an audience.

My best friend is a moviestar? 

I attended with my best friend and resident moviestar, Daisy, who had acted in two of the films: The Cottage (a film about a lesbian princess and a witch, because apparently even student cinema has better representation than Hollywood) and Same Great Taste (two ambitious best friends become disgruntled by a change in their beloved soda recipe and take their complaint all the way to the top – finally, someone is tackling the real issues).

Daisy and I were accompanied by our respective boyfriends, who became increasingly more drunk throughout the evening. We, naturally, abandoned them to their own devices (old ball and chain, am I right ladies?).

Instead, Daisy spent the night catching up with approximately 700 people she had worked with on various film sets, while I followed sheepishly behind her, nodding along and attempting to look vaguely like a journalist. Oh, what a glamorous life I lead.

I spent much of the evening being introduced to the extensive cinematic extended universe of people my best friend had worked with.

There were a lot of them.

But what was immediately obvious was how closely connected everyone involved in the productions had become.

Actors knew directors. Directors knew writers. Crew members knew actors. Everyone seemed to have worked with everyone else at some point, and there was a genuine sense of friendship and camaraderie running through the evening.

It was clear that these were not simply people who had signed up to a university society and occasionally turned up to meetings.

They had made something together. And they were bloody proud of it.

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Daisy has said “Creating a project with complete strangers who shared the same vision and passion as you and then having it showcased in front of hundreds of people on a big screen is what makes the society so special”.

The premiere itself was a fantastic evening, with an atmosphere that managed to feel both sophisticated and distinctly Glasweigan.

The society had pulled off a polished and professional night, and the films themselves reflected the amount of work that had gone into making them.

My personal favourite was Zombiefried, a film about a strain of weed that turns Glasgow – and eventually the entire world – into zombies. Which is, if nothing else, an exceptionally ambitious way to spend a student film budget.

For Filmmaking Society’s 2025/26 President Dulcie and Vice President Solo, however, the standout was Detective of the Month, which they both selected as their favourite film of the evening. This was a movie about two imbecile detectives that stage a case to solve so they can finally be recognised for their talent – or lack thereof. Altogether belly laughter all around.

The night was, in many ways, the perfect showcase of what the society has become.

The BTS of the society 

Now only four years old, the Filmmaking Society has been growing rapidly and is better equipped than ever, having invested more into its equipment and increased its film budgets.

Longer films currently receive budgets of around £100, while shorts receive around £50, giving filmmakers the resources to bring their ideas to life while learning how a real production works, with lots of creativity required to make props and costumes etc in cost effective ways.

And the society takes that process seriously.

From the initial script selection to casting, production and the final screening, there is a clear structure behind each project. The scipt writing deadline has already been met this year but theres still the opportunity to get involved and join the script committee, or to get involved with any other role imaginable in the process of filmmaking. 

The result is a society that manages to do something quite difficult: maintain a professional standard while remaining genuinely accessible to people who are completely new to filmmaking.

Because you do not need to have worked on a film before.

You just need to be willing to get involved.

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