Take One Action launches Glasgow edition of 2025 festival with a call to imagine Real Utopias

Sep 25

Take One Action opens the Glasgow edition of its 2025 film festival this Thursday, inviting audiences to gather, imagine and explore local and global solutions to today’s most pressing issues. This year’s theme, Real Utopias, celebrates cinema as a catalyst for connection and collective action.

The festival runs 25–28 September with most screenings at GMAC and an opening event, Beans on Screen, hosted by Platform. Centered on the humble bean, the launch night combines a screening, talks and shared food to spark conversations about food justice, climate, and the power of growing and eating together. The evening features New Zealand’s Together We Grow, short film Team Bean – created through a Take One Action research project in Easterhouse – and a talk from Nourish about their Public Diners pilot.

Across four days, films from Mexico, the UK, the Philippines and beyond will explore climate action, housing justice, trans identity and thriving communities. Highlights include the creative documentaries Power Station and NIÑXS, and archival gem Red Skirts on Clydeside, screened with Living Rent Glasgow.

For the first time, Take One Action introduces a grassroots co-programming strand, handing over curatorial power to local groups. In Glasgow, Exhale Group has selected the queer Filipino road movie ASOG and the Scottish-Palestinian short The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing, followed by discussion with local organisers including Trans Healthcare Access Glasgow, Decolonising the Outdoors and Art Workers for Palestine.

Director Rachel Hamada said: "The selection of ﬁlms and events we have for you embody this year's theme of Real Utopias - both messy and beautiful. All of our screenings and workshops should hopefully leave you with a spring in your step and ideas for what to do next."

Curator Xuanlin Tham said: "At Take One Action, we know people regularly come to us for a sense of connection and active hope, which is a responsibility we take seriously. In ever-darker and more violent, despairing times all over the world, it’s utterly crucial for us to root into a sense of imagination and possibility – to harness our collective power, understand our intertwined and collective struggles, and begin to build the world we deserve right on our doorstep."

Alongside screenings, an assembly-style event, Building Arts Spaces for Palestinian Liberation, will examine how Scottish arts organisations can reflect the values they present on stage within their own structures and actions.

The festival maintains a strong access commitment, offering:

All films with descriptive subtitles
Live BSL/English interpretation and live captions at selected events
Pay-what-you-can tickets across all venues
An audience access fund for travel and childcare
Detailed content and access notes for every film

After Glasgow, the festival continues in Inverness (10–12 Oct, Eden Court) and Dundee (7–9 Nov, DCA & Steps Theatre). Full programme details and booking are available on the Take One Action website.

The 2025 festivals are supported by The National Lottery through Screen Scotland’s Film Festival & Screening Programme Fund, Film Hub Scotland, City of Edinburgh Council’s Local Events Open Fund, the Regenerative Futures Fund, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and generous community supporters.