If you a movie buff and live in the North of the UK and cannot make it to London this weekend for the start of BFI Flare LGBTQ Film Festival there is a very great alternative right on your doorstep.

The Leeds Queer Film Festival is a DIY festival run by and for the LGBTQ+ community in Leeds. It combines queer cinema with group discussions, workshops, and talks, raising awareness about current issues of relevance to the community, along with other activities.

We looked through their very diverse film schedule which includes some great programs of queer shorts, and some excellent feature films too, and we have chosen three of them for our ‘must-see’  recommendations.

A Moment In The Reeds: its the debut film from London based writer/director  Mikko Makela that makes claim to be Finland’s very first LGBT romance.  The timing is perfect coming straight after the brilliant Gods Own Country as it is the story of another hunky immigrant worker that comes to renovate a desolate country cottage, and also falls for the rather studious son-of-the-house too.  Tender, enchanting and extremely sensual,  it is how one summer becomes a moment that neither men will forget.

 

TWO SOFT THINGS, TWO HARD THINGS: What starts out as such a disturbing eyeopener with some of the more shocking aspects of the history of the INUIT people  in NUNAVUT, the Northern Territory of Quebec in Canada, does thankfully end on a positive and upbeat note for the people who identify as LGBT in that community. This wonderful documentary from filmmakers MARK KENNETH WOODS and MICHAEL YERXA begins with the bleak facts of how the effects of enforced colonization of these indigenous First Nation natives, combined with the doctrine of Catholic missionaries, was so treacherous for its very survival. From the mid part of the last century, they imposed their own western standards on a civilization that had survived for a few thousand years, which was not only troubling, to say the least, but it challenged its very culture and society.

 

 

APRICOT GROVES: In his first feature film Iranian/Armenian writer/director POURIA HEIDARY OUREH places his story in his two home countries which are very rarely the settings for any LGBTQ movie.  The tale he spins is exceptionally beautiful and told with such a discreet compassion and understanding that when the main crux of the story is finally revealed, you cannot help feel deeply moved by the journey that Aram  (NARBE VARTAN) the protagonist has taken.

 

 

LEEDS QUEER FILM FESTIVAL March 22nd- 25th 2018: 

for full details of the program of events etc:   /www.leedsqueerfilmfestival.co.uk/
 
For full reviews of these and other LGBTQ movies https:// queerguru.com