Viggo Mortensen to appear at Glasgow Film Festival

The Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen is to headline a special event at the Glasgow Film Festival.

The American actor, who has also starred in A History of Violence and the Oscar-winning Green Book, will be one of the event's top attractions.

He will discuss his career at an "in conversation" event on 3 March before the UK premiere of his new film The Dead Don't Hurt.

Mortensen directs and stars in the production, a Western set in the 1860s.

He is best known for his role as Aragorn in the epic fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings, and has been nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars on three occasions.

Also appearing at the festival, which will run from 28 February to 10 March, is the British director Ben Wheatley.

He will take part in a question and answer session following a screening of his debut feature Down Terrace, which is marking its 15th anniversary.

A total of 11 world premieres are scheduled for the film festival, which is marking its 20th anniversary.

A further 69 films are receiving their UK premiere.

The opening gala will be Love Lies Bleeding, a thriller starring the Twilight actress Kirsten Stewart, with the closing gala being the documentary Janey, following Scottish comedian Janey Godley after she was diagnosed with cancer.

Ms Godley told the BBC that nothing was off limits when making the film.

Other Scottish connections at the festival include a restoration of 1976 documentary Billy Connolly: Big Banana Feet, taken from one of the only two remaining 16mm prints in existence, a documentary on the Edinburgh director Bill Douglas and Tummy Monster, the debut film from Glasgow director Ciaran Lyons.

Allison Gardner, the chief executive of Glasgow Film and the director of the film festival, said that she was "very proud" of the event's commitment to supporting Scottish talent over the years.

She added that she hoped audiences would "take a chance" on emerging and unknown talent during the fortnight.

Other major attractions include Ewan McGregor and his real-life daughter Clara McGregor in road movie Bleeding Love, the X-Files star David Duchovny's adaptation of his own novel Bucky F*ing Dent and a restoration of Danny Boyle’s Glasgow-shot Shallow Grave.

A retrospective will also show films from major years in Glasgow's cinema history, focusing on 1939, when the city's Cosmo cinema opened; 1974, when the Cosmo became the current Glasgow Film Theatre; and 2005, when the festival debuted.