Scottish reel treat

Following the successful inaugural Southside Film Festival in May 2011, this year picks up where it left off with a varied programme of films for the diverse audience which makes this such a special event.

There's a multitude of archive, shorts, features, animation, documentaries, artists, talks and workshops, plus a focus on Southside work on offer.

The film and music combo SouthXSouthside returns with a screening of Ballads Of The Book, collaborations between Scottish musicians and writers including Ian Rankin, AL Kennedy, Sons & Daughters, King Creosote, James Yorkston, Vashti Bunyan, Malcolm Middleton, Rodge Glass, Aidan Moffat, Alan Bissett, the late Edwin Morgan and Alasdair Gray.

The mighty Wurtlizer organ in the wonderful surroundings of Pollokshaws Burgh Hall will be cranked up again for a comedy - Buster Keaton's The General - in an atmospheric retro cinematic experience, complete with ice cream and popcorn.

Established and emerging Southside film-makers feature in screenings of Peter Mullan's NEDS, Simon Arthur's Silver Tongues, Carter Ferguson's Fast Romance and Bill Forstyth's Comfort and Joy - not strictly a Southsider, but parts of the film were shot in the area.

Local women film-makers will get to show their work at new venue The Mungo and the film programme also includes Green Screen - films from Ireland - with a double bill of Troubled Stories From Derry (Bernadette, Notes on a Political Journey) and Belfast (A Million Bricks).

The Made In Govan strand is a selection of work from local community filmmaking organisation, Planation Productions, and there's a screening too of Class Struggle: Film From The Clyde. The Cinema Action film of the UCS 1971 work-in was shot by the only film crew allowed access to the shipyards and is a unique document of the workers' struggle.

An Evening With Sherlock Holmes, featuring Reichenbach Falls, comes with a Q&A from actor Alec Newman and writer James Mavor.

Children and young people are well catered for too with surprise screenings at Pollokshaws Library and a cartoon animation workshop for eight to 12-year- olds.

Workshops on scriptwriting, the mass participation project We Are Northern Lights, a talk on Southside cinema architecture and a debate on "crowdfunding" and whether it works to finance feature films and shorts complete four crammed days of a great line-up.

And it's literally impossible to miss - as well as established venues, there are screenings and events in "pop-up" cinemas all over the area including a boat shed, swimming baths, a scout hall, a pub and a nightclub.